Mickey O'Sullivan

I Survived Theatre School

Intro: when you don't feel your best, do the thing anyway, Fake Famous, H&M is 40 shades of putty, Stitch Fix,
Let Me Run This By You: Selfie vacations, Paul Stuart, rent a fake jet, Tevas, we are old enough to accidentally wear cool clothes.
Interview: We talk to Mickey O'Sullivan about body image, sibling relationships, getting bullied, Illinois State University, The Wake, Henry Moore is Melting at The Athenaeum, addiction, Sophia Bush, Chicago PD, Casey Affleck.
FULL TRANSCRIPT (unedited):
2 (10s):
And I'm Gina .

3 (11s):
We went to theater school together. We survived it, but we didn't quite understand it.

2 (15s):
20 years later, we're digging deep talking to our guests about their experiences and trying to make sense of it all.

3 (21s):
We survived theater school and you will too. Are we famous yet?

2 (35s):
Isolation is a funny thing because it's both the thing that you feel drawn towards when you don't feel well. But it's also the thing that, you know, that makes it worse. And I saw another thing that said, the more comfortable you get with you and who you are, the less likely you're going to want to isolate because it does, you know, it it's effort to be who you are when you're, you know, not kind of sinked up. Yeah. That's all just to say that when my kids have their aches and pains and two of my kids are real vocal about every single sensation they ever have in their body at any given time. Like, I can't think of a time where these two leave the house where I haven't heard my foot hurts.

2 (1m 20s):
My shoulder hurts. I have a headache. My stomach hurts. It hurts when I do this. And I, I believe it all. And yet I'm like, yeah, but if you stay home, I'm not going to let you be on a screen. So you're just going to literally be staring at the wall, feeling that I wouldn't, you rather go to school. Right.

1 (1m 38s):
Interesting. But Gina, it has taken me to 46 to actually realize that. So they're like, literally like a year ago, I probably would've been like, you know what, I'm just gonna stay home. And like, I have a headache, but like now I realize like, oh no, I think it's also like, time is slipping by like, I'm getting older, we're marching towards death. Like I got to get outside

2 (2m 3s):
Dude. And

1 (2m 4s):
You know, so like, I, I think it takes some what it takes, but yeah, man, I know that this pandemic has created the sense that the outside world is dangerous because literally it was, so it is like a war in that we, I felt like we were in a war when, when this all started, it was two years ago this month. Right. So right. I came to visit and then all to you and then all hell broke loose. And it, yeah, it created this thing of like the danger is outside the home. And so now it's like so easy to, but I actually realize that I feel worse at home because not only then do I have a headache, I have to deal with my fucking dog.

1 (2m 52s):
Who's a pain in the ass and get triggered by my husband who I think should be doing his job differently. And I hear him because we're in a teeny house. So that's torture. That's worse.

2 (3m 3s):
That's terrible. That's no good. My corollary for that is just, I do spend all of my, I mean, I do my, everything I do is, is at my house. I take care of my house. I take care of my kids and then I write and, and work, work on, you know, artistic stuff when you're home and your office, maybe miles experiences this too. Like you don't, you're never not at work in a way. So you're, I gotta do some, I gotta do something to have more of a separation. Maybe I should just like, bro, did you, did you see what about Bob? When he, he worked from home, but he clocked in. I should know that.

1 (3m 42s):
Well, the other thing that I was thinking, so I, okay. I thought about this cause I was asked. Okay. So I, a friend of mine said, I have this free thing for stitch fix. Right. One of these bottles. Okay. Right. I've done those before I did DIA and co and whatever it lost, its luster, it's a waste of money. Eventually. It feels like, and it's ridiculous. Okay. But good, good news about stitch fix is that, or one of these services is that one. I love the jeans they sent me, but two, you have to leave the house to return the things you don't want or you pay for the things. Right. Okay. So that's a side benefit. And so that got me out of the house and three I'm wondering, I was like, oh, maybe I should send my code to Gina.

1 (4m 26s):
But then I'm like, Gina, doesn't like to shut up. Right. And Gina doesn't like, so they do the shopping, but you also don't strike me as someone who would want to dress up for our meetings.

2 (4m 36s):
Exactly. And I did stitch fix and did it for a while. And then I was like, well, what am I dress for? This is a big conundrum. I have just life in general. And we should tell our listeners that, you know, we're, we're contemplating recording, doing a video recorder recording of these podcasts, which will be great, but then it'll make me feel like I need to, but maybe, but maybe it's okay to feel that way. Maybe it would be actually really good for my mental health to be like, I have to get dressed for my day.

1 (5m 8s):
I think it helps me. I mean, look, I'm literally wearing a tank top and a bra, but like

2 (5m 14s):
No, that's huge. Yeah,

1 (5m 15s):
Yeah, yeah. Right. No, and pants without an elastic ways. So like, I think it helps me in that. And some days it's just a pain in the ass, but it also helps me to think that, yeah, at least I'm trying in some area of my life, which we're all trying in all areas, but I'm just saying it's a visual representation of the fact that like, oh, I'm trying, the other thing about coworking that I like is I get to see other people's outfits. And sometimes they're really cute. Sometimes they're fucking horrible. Like it there's a lot of like 20 year olds that are here at co-working because are 20, 25. I'm a little old. So I like age everyone down, but like a 25 year olds that cause you can rent big offices here too.

1 (5m 59s):
Like for companies like marketing companies. So I see the fashions of the 20 five-year-olds and I'm like, whoa, you are opening my eyes to a whole hell scape of fashion that I did not know existed.

2 (6m 14s):
It's all so bad. It's all so bad. By the wa...