Alison Stewart: This is All Of It. I'm Alison Stewart, live from the WNYC studios in SoHo. Thank you for spending your day with us. I'm really grateful you're here. On today's show, let's talk about the news. We'll speak with the author of Here Now the News: An Inside Scoop Into New York's Best-Loved Anchors, and we'll take your calls about your favorites. We'll wrap up our full bio conversation with Susan Page, the author of The Rulebreaker: The Life and Times of Barbara Walters. Plus, we'll hear Elizabeth Taylor in her own words, speaking candidly about her life. It's part of the new film Elizabeth Taylor: The Lost Tapes. We'll speak with its director. That's the plan, so let's get this started with 94-year-old actor, June Squibb.

A new comedy drama/action flick stars a lady who is on a mission. Her name is Thelma. She's in her '90s and she is scammed out of $10,000 by bad guys. Police don't have any leads and her family is wondering, is this the first sign of Thelma's decline? But don't tell Thelma that, she wants her money back. Armed with a mobility scooter, a sidekick named Ben, and a whole lot of wisdom, she plans to make the scammers pay.

Thelma is played by Academy Award nominee June Squibb. One review read, "Thelma makes questionable choices in her action packed journey, but her refusal to give up her independence or be a victim, ultimately makes her as heroic as a younger man jumping from one rooftop to another just to show us he can." Thelma was written and directed by Josh Margolin, and it's in theaters now. Joining us is June Squibb. Hi, June.

June Squibb: Hello.

Alison Stewart: Hello. How would you describe your character, Thelma?

June Squibb: Oh, I think she's a wonderful 90-year-old with great grit and determination. She obviously is someone that won't let anything go by her. If they steal her money, she's determined to go and get it back.

Alison Stewart: The person who understands Thelma well is her grandson, a nice guy who can't seem to figure himself out, played by a friend of our show, Fred Hechinger. We love Fred.

June Squibb: Oh, Fred's heaven.

Alison Stewart: We've known Fred for a long time. What does she see in her grandson that others don't?

June Squibb: Oh, I think she sees a wonderful young man who's just ready to blossom and is probably-- I feel that she thinks he's holding himself back, and if she can just help him let loose, then he will just blossom into whatever it is he wants to be.

Alison Stewart: Your relationship with Fred has been noted by many reviewers. You two have real chemistry together. He's at the start of his career. He's in his early 20s. What made him a good partner for you in this film?

June Squibb: Oh, he's so dear. He's so loving and he's so honest. He's honest as a person and he's honest as an actor. I like that, I need that when I'm working. I need someone who is as honest as I hope that I am. It was a no brainer. Josh brought him over to meet me at my apartment and we just immediately kind of fell in love with each other.

Alison Stewart: When you say you need someone that you can be honest with, what do you mean by that?

June Squibb: In acting, you're really at your best. You're giving an awful lot of yourself. I feel that the only way to do that is to do it honestly. I mean, I don't pretend, so I'm really giving a lot of myself. Fred is the same way. He just has a real honesty about him, a very realness about him when he's working.

Alison Stewart: Given that you've been in the business a little bit longer than he has?

June Squibb: A little, yes, a little.

Alison Stewart: What advice would you give him in terms of longevity?

June Squibb: Oh, God, just keep going, and I think he will. He loves it, he's good at it, and he just is doing one film after the other at his age. I mean, I think that his career is pretty much set on a really fine path.

Alison Stewart: When you see Danny and Thelma together, what do Danny and Thelma share in terms of how the rest of the world sees them?

June Squibb: I think they both feel that the world doesn't see them in their completeness. I don't think they're naïve in terms of who they are or what they are, but I think that there are things to both of them, that they both feel the world doesn't see. I think Danny's problems with his girlfriend, his problems with his mother and father and Thelma's problems with her daughter and son in law, and even Ben, they want to have the world look at them in their fullness. I think they both feel that they are not looked at in that.

Alison Stewart: In the film, Parker Posey plays your sort of overly worried daughter, and by the book husband is played by Clark Gregg. How do Thelma's adult children, I should say, how did they describe her?

June Squibb: Describe Thelma?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

June Squibb: Oh, I think they feel she's losing it, and I don't know if it's because of what she's doing or just her age. We expect it to happen at certain ages. When you get to certain ages, you're gonna slow down, that your mind is going to play tricks on itself. I think that they see her as stereotype, and she's not. She's not a stereotype. She's her own person, and Josh's real grandmother is 104, I think, today or tomorrow, and her mind is great. I guess that that is one of the big problems with the people around you and even the people you love. Because I think that Thelma loves her daughter and son in law, and I think that Danny loves his mother and dad, but they realize that these people would never really understand them.

Alison Stewart: My guest is June Squibb. She's starring in Thelma. It's in theaters now. Let's listen to a scene from Thelma. It's sort of the motivating action. Thelma gets scammed. She puts a lot of money in the mail. This is the scene what happens when she goes to the police. She explains what's gone wrong. The police officer speaks first. This is from Thelma.

Police Officer: We could report a tracking number if it's with Western Union, FedEx, UPS. With the latter, our only real option is to contact the postal service, and with these types of things, the odds are slim, especially without the address.

Thelma: I think I have it here.

Speaker 3: Such a mean thing to do.

Speaker 4: Is there anything that can be done? A database of some kind?

Speaker 3: We have no moral center in this society? This is a systemic issue.

Thelma: Yeah, I don't have it.

Police Officer: If it's any comfort, these kinds of scams are increasingly common.

Thelma: Well, how do they know who I am?

Police Officer: They contact people at random using telephone listings and social networking sites.

Thelma: Like Facebook?

Police Officer: Sure, by Facebook.

Thelma: Well, how can Zuckerberg let this happen?

Police Officer: Sorry?

Thelma: Shouldn't Zuckerberg be able to fix this?

Police Officer: Are you on Facebook?

Thelma: Am I?

Speaker 3: No, you're not. She's not. This was a tangent.

Police Officer: I would suggest canceling your cards and freezing your accounts until you're sure you didn't provide any information that can leave the door open to more fraud. Beyond that, there's not much we can do at this point.

Speaker 4: Hmm.

Police Officer: Sorry.

Alison Stewart: That's from Thelma. This scene in the movie actually happened to the real Thelma, the mother of writer and director Josh Margolin, how did he explain what happened to you?

June Squibb: I think that people are very eager to help their loved ones, and I think when you're threatened, someone calling you and saying that, your grandson is in jail and he needs $10,000, I think it's natural that you don't question it that much. You think, oh, my God, I can get it together, I'll do that and do whatever they ask just to help him.

Alison Stewart: It's really interesting. I think Thelma really has a lot going on. We see that she can get things done once she gets surprised by these people. She has money in the house. She finds it, she gets it to the scammer. She does it, she gets it to the mailbox. I think Thelma's actually pretty quick. What do you think?

June Squibb: Yes, I think so, too. I think Thelma is the kind of woman that finds an answer for everything. In other words, she said, "But I can't drive," and he says, "Well, take a cab," and that's what she does. She takes a cab to get-- I forget where she was going then because she walked to the post office the first time.

I think she just is able to handle things much more than anyone ever thinks she can.

Alison Stewart: On this trip to get the money back. I'm curious, do you think she just really wants to get the money back, or does she want to prove she can get the money back?

June Squibb: I think it's probably a combination of things. I think that it hurt her tremendously to know that she was duped, that she fell for this. I think it made her feel dumb, and I think that that's natural. I think we do feel dumb when things happen to us that it's our fault, we've done it, but it was a mistake. I think she just wants to prove that she's not dumb, and I think she also wants her money back. I think when she says, "I want to say where this money goes, I don't want it just to go off to you willy-nilly."

Alison Stewart: To make her grand plan work, she needs help, a mobility scooter. Both come from Ben, a friend, the husband of a friend of hers who's passed away. Richard Roundtree is your co pilot, your partner in crime. What was it like to work with Richard Roundtree on what would have been his last role?

June Squibb: It was wonderful. He's such a good actor and such a lovely, delightful guy, and everybody loved him. He was just the best. It was my birthday during the shooting and he wasn't called that day, but he came driving up with two dozen red roses for me. My assistant had gotten a lot of white wigs, so that whenever I looked around that day I just saw someone wearing a white wig that looked like myself. He had a white wig on. I mean, he was just the best. He really was. We were all really so devastated and hurt by his going. It was so sad to all of us.

Alison Stewart: You'll have that great memory of the birthday, though.

June Squibb: Oh, yeah. We have a picture actually of it, we really remember that one.

Alison Stewart: The two characters have different feelings about aging. He's okay with living in an assisted situation. She likes it at home. What do you think Ben and Thelma teach each other?

June Squibb: The things that are important to them, I think they are able to give the other one glimpses of that, whether it will make a huge difference, I don't know. Because I think they're both pretty set in their ways. I don't think Thelma will go into retirement home graciously or in the near future, and I don't think he will be out adventuring that much without her. If she shows up again and says, "Let's do this or let's do that," he might do it.

I think that they were able to prove to the other one that there is life and there are choices, that they have more choices than they originally thought they had.

Alison Stewart: My guest is June Squibb. We're talking about her film, Thelma. It's in theaters now. June Squibb, action star, you do your own stunts. Whose idea was that?

June Squibb: Mine, completely, because when I first read that script, I thought, oh, that scooter sounds great. I can't wait to get on that, but everybody assumed that it would be the stunt person doing all the scooter riding and doing all of the stunts, everything physical. I really wanted to try things, and they let me try, much to their dismay, sometimes, and I didn't kill myself. I was fine. I didn't hurt myself, and so little by little, they let me do more.

Alison Stewart: Had you ever shot a gun before?

June Squibb: I have on stage. I've never shot a gun on film, but I have shot a gun on stage.

Alison Stewart: What did you learn about action movies that you didn't understand before?

June Squibb: I think the most important thing is to have a big fire behind you as you're walking off. I love that. Every time I see the film, I get tickled when I see that.

Alison Stewart: I wonder what advice Richard Roundtree, the original Shaft, gave you on playing a gun toting action hero.

June Squibb: We never really talked about shaft that much. I keep saying that I was always aware that was Shaft on the motor scooter behind me, though, all the time. We really didn't talk that kind of-- we talked about our families a lot, and we did talk about what we wanted to do and vacations. Just the general things we talked about.

Alison Stewart: Tom Cruise gives Thelma the idea. She's watching Mission Impossible. She's read articles that he's still an action star in movies, that he can jump to new heights. First of all, do you know if Tom Cruise has seen the film?

June Squibb: I don't know. I do know he has a link or whatever they sent him so he could see it. We don't know if he's seen it yet or not.

Alison Stewart: All right, well, we'll wait to hear about that.

June Squibb: I really don't know.

Alison Stewart: How long did it take to make the film?

June Squibb: We shot 27/28 days, I think it was. I'm not sure. It wasn't a long post production period. I think it was about, oh, probably a year of post production, maybe not quite, because the wonderful Josh Margolin, who wrote and directed is also an editor, and he has experience as an editor, so he edited the film as well. A lot of it was done as he went along, which they tend to do now with the new digital stuff anyway. They tend to edit quicker and as they're being filmed, so the post production is not as long as it used to be.

Alison Stewart: What did you like about a pretty brisk pace, 27 days to make a movie. What do you like about the short pace?

June Squibb: I like getting it done. Sometimes when it takes longer, you get a little nutsy with it, but it worked. We got it, it was very relaxed, too. I must say, it was probably the most relaxed set I've ever been on with Josh's leadership and all of the actors that I was working with. It was a pleasure to do.

Alison Stewart: You were talking about all the actors, Clark, Greg Parker Posey, Fred, Richard Rowntree, Malcolm McDowell. You are the star of the film, but it is an ensemble piece in many ways?

June Squibb: Oh, very much so.

Alison Stewart: What do you like about the ensemble?

June Squibb: I think that you feel that you're working with the other actors. It's not just you standing there trying to make magic all by yourself. You have all these other great actors that you're working with, and that's lovely. That's really great. I mean, I appreciate constantly the people I work with.

Alison Stewart: My guest is June Squibb. The film is Thelma. It's in theaters now. June, what does the movie, Thelma get right about aging?

June Squibb: I think the fact that we can do more than we think we can. I think Thelma's right in that respect, I feel that in my own life. I think you just have to say to people who say no, you can't do this, like, yes, I can. I think that it just her grit and determination and those words are used over and over again to describe her, but that's what it is. I mean, she is determined. She's determined to right a wrong. I think she's morally and ethically someone who feels things should be right. If it's wrong, we fix it. I think that's her.

Alison Stewart: Thelma has a fall in the film. She has a moment when she realizes her friends have died. What do you like about a script that doesn't sugarcoat aging?

June Squibb: I think we have to. Theater, film, whatever, for me, is reality. The closer we get to reality, the better it is. Certainly, I don't think age should be sugar-coated. It doesn't need to be sugar-coated. I mean, at any age, you have negative things happen to you. It's not like a huge revelation that when you get a certain age, all these things happen.

I think that the more we know about age, people are getting more and more fascinated about age. You just read more and more about it, more and more articles being written about it. Our whole population is aging, and I think everybody wants to know what's happening to us.

Alison Stewart: There's a lot of really great needle pointing going on in this film.

June Squibb: Oh, yes.

Alison Stewart: I love to needlepoint myself. Was that your--?

June Squibb: Oh, you do?

Alison Stewart: I do love to needlepoint. Was that you? Did they have a needlepoint expert?

June Squibb: No. Thelma herself is a needlepoint expert. I don't think she did them. I think they had somebody else do that. I sort of went in and piddle paddled around with it, but I didn't do too much work. I think they had to take out everything I did every day and start over again, but I was doing it.

Alison Stewart: All right. You have a bit part in a beloved, beloved series, Inside Out, too, playing the voice of nostalgia. Comes in, it's short, everybody loves it. Is there another film in the work featuring perhaps Nostalgia a bit more?

June Squibb: I have no idea. They were laughing about that when we were doing the audio on Nostalgia. They said we ought to do a cartoon about Nostalgia. I said, a short one, maybe, I hope, but we were all joking around, so I don't know that there's plans for it. I rather doubt it. I think if they Inside Out 3, God knows how long it'll take them to do it, but that would be fun to go in and do Nostalgia again.

Alison Stewart: June, what are you working on now?

June Squibb: I just committed to an adult cartoon that tickled me. I thought it was pretty funny, a great idea. I think we're starting that, they think, after the 1st of the year. I have a few other things that I'm sort of deciding on right now.

Alison Stewart: Everyone should go see Thelma. It's in theaters now. It is starring June Squibb. June, thank you so much for spending the time with us.

June Squibb: Thank you. I've enjoyed this.

[00:22:26] [END OF AUDIO]

 

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