A Hulu limited series, Georgia Hunter and Thomas Kail, WE WERE THE LUCKY ONES

[1:37]Zibby Owens: I'm Zibby Owens and I am the host of this podcast, Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. I am also a newly minted USA Today bestselling author of the novel, blank. I've created a whole community of book lovers around this podcast, a publishing company, reading retreats, a book store, and more. Learn more at zivymedia.com or follow me on social at Zibby Owens or join the community at Zibby Readers. Thomas Kale and Georgia Hunter are doing a joint podcast today to discuss We Were the Lucky Ones, which is both a novel and currently a TV show, which I am absolutely obsessed with. I posted about it, and then people reached out from Hulu and who knew Georgia, the author and the director. And, anyway, I got to interview them both, and it was sensational because I cannot stop thinking about this family and the story, especially in light of everything that is going on in the world today. So here is some background information. When Georgia Hunter was 15 years old, she learned that she came from a family of Holocaust survivors. Her novel, We Were the Lucky Ones, was born of her quest to uncover her family's staggering story. A New York Times bestseller, the book has been published in over 20 foreign editions, incorporated into school curriculums, and adapted as a Hulu limited series. She lives in Connecticut with her husband and their two young sons. Her second book, One Good Thing, is due out in spring of twenty twenty five. Director and producer Thomas Kale is known for developing and directing the Off Broadway and Broadway productions of the Tony winning best musicals In the Heights and Hamilton. Have you heard of it? He won the Tony award for best director for Hamilton and was nominated for In the Heights. Most recently, Kale directed the Broadway musical Sweeney Todd. On Broadway, he also directed the new plays Lombardi and Magic Bird and produced and directed the improv comedy show Freestyle Love Supreme, which was the recipient of a special Tony award. Kale directed and produced the Emmy winning live capture of Hamilton for Disney plus and produced the Hulu documentary, We Are Freestyle Love Supreme, which premiered at Sundance. He directed five episodes and executive produced the FX eight episode limited series Fosse slash Verdin. The series earned four Emmy Awards, a WGA Award for Kale, as well as nominations for outstanding directing by the DGA and the Emmys. Kale directed an executive produced Grease Live for Fox for which he won Emmys for both directing and producing. This is a sensational and very meaningful conversation, and I was honored to have had it. Welcome. I have a amazing double guest episode here with Tommy and Georgia whose bios I've already read. Welcome to We Were The Lucky Ones to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. Congratulations.

[4:33]Thomas Kail: Thank you. Thank you. Very happy to be here. I have not been so

[4:38]Zibby Owens: immersed in, addicted to, obsessed with a family since learning about yours, Georgia, which I feel like might sound creepy. But after watching the series and reading and everything, I am just over the moon, so interested and enamored by everything. Okay. I'll stop now, but thank you for this sharing your story. Not creepy at all. It's it's it means a lot to me. So it's it's

[5:01]Georgia Hunter: you know, it is interesting to get texts and emails from audience members be like, tell me more exactly about this person. And, you know, you forget sometimes that characters are real people, and then you have these moments where you're like, oh, yeah. Yeah. Let hold on. Let me go ask Felicia's daughter, and I'll get an answer for you.

[5:19]Zibby Owens: Me get back to you then. Crazy. It's just crazy. Okay. So explain how you came across just tell the whole story. Start with Georgia. Tell me how you got involved, when you two teamed up, when this became the series.

[5:31]Georgia Hunter: Let's hear. Sure. Sure. Okay. So the quick the quick version of, I guess, what sparked this whole project was a high school English assignment. I was 15 years old, asked to go out and interview a relative. I sat down with my grandmother Caroline, who you meet later on in the series and in the book, And I actually have the paper here that I wrote from it. I found it the other Oh my gosh. Papa's gift. I got an a. I bet. He he had given me, like, a bad grade. He'd probably feel so bad. So I sat with my grandmother, and that was the first time. My grandfather, who's Addie, Logan Lerman plays in the show, had died the year before, and I didn't know anything about his past. So it was in that interview that I discovered that I was a quarter Jewish, that I came from a family of Holocaust survivors. I learned all about this town in Poland where my grandfather and his siblings grew up. The discovery sparked a lot of questions and a lot of curiosity. And then about five years later, I found myself sitting around a dinner table with my mother and her nine first cousins on my grandfather's side. My mom's Addie's middle child. And they were telling stories about the war, and they were unlike anything I'd ever heard before. Babies born in Siberia and false IDs, a disguised circumcision, a mother daughter escaped from the ghetto. Like, they kept coming, and I remember thinking, how have I never heard these stories before? And someone really needs to write them down. And I was 21. I just graduated from college, and I didn't necessarily know at that moment that that would be me, that somebody, but I think that's when the idea was seeded, and I I couldn't quite shake it. And eight years later, I set off on a mission to unearth and record the story, and I flew around the world. My family is very global. We live on all the far corners of the world. So I knew it would be a big endeavor, and I I got the permission and support of the family and my husband, Robert, and I started flying around with my little digital voice recorder and collecting interviews and doing a bunch of outside research and then also just traveling in the family's footsteps. It was important for me to go back to Poland. No one ever went back once they left. And I wanted to stand there, you know, where they once stood and see the home and experience sit for myself and little by little. The process took nine years, so it was not a not a fast project. But the book came out in 2017, and Tommy was involved along the entire process because Tommy and I have known each other for twenty five years. So right about when I started doing my research, I met Tommy through my husband, again, Robert. They were camp buddies, like, summer. Literally, like, 12 14, I think. So I knew Tommy, and he was he was cheering for me, you know, along the way in the research process. And then when the book came out, about a year later, he called and said, hey, pal. How would you like to partner up and and try to bring this story to the screen? And I'll let you talk about that a bit more, Tommy. But, like, that just I I was a little bit nervous about floating it out to to to Hollywood and to have it, you know, land in the wrong hands, but but to have a dear friend who also happens to be a little bit talented and and so, you know, so passionate about what he does and chooses projects from his heart. I just couldn't have found a better partner, and it felt like a dream come true. So so, yeah, we partnered up, and he introduced me to Erica Lopez. And then like Tommy says, we pushed the rock up the hill, and here we are.

[8:47]Zibby Owens: Oh my gosh.

[8:48]Thomas Kail: Amazing. It's all true. All I can say is, once again, Georgia has told the truth. Well, the most important question, where did you go to sleep away camp? Is I know. For me, let's be honest. A Jewish story starts at a summer camp. So I I grew up in Northern Virginia, in Alexandria, Virginia. And Robert's Georgia's now husband grew up in Richmond and this camp was called Camp Greenbrier and it was not affiliated with the nice old hotel. It was in this town called Alderson and it was, it was an amazingly important and formative place for me. It was also, you know, rustic and by rustic, I mean, you know, like three people in a platform tent and mess hall and, you know, and all of that. So I started going there in 1988 and I became friends with Robert's older brother and then met Robert a couple years later. So like in 'ninety three or something like that. And then George and I were trying to figure it out, but we think we met in 'ninety nine. So somewhere around 'ninety nine when she was in college and I was visiting Robert, I had a chance to meet her there. So, yeah, that was the genesis of it. And as George and I like to say, that's not where most Hollywood stories start, but I I am proud to wrap the the the West Virginia Hills.

[9:56]Zibby Owens: Amazing. This might be fodder. My kids are, like, kicking and screaming about going to sleep boy camp this summer. So I'll just be like, you never know. I mean, this could be your big movie moment. Right? The big screen. That's right. That's right. That's we were dreaming about as we were canoeing and trying to fish. Yeah. Exactly. I think I'm still recovering from, like, the poison ivy and, you know, like, just the missing of the family. I feel like I used I used to wait for the packages and just, like, you know, they would sneak in M and M's and I would just, you know Ziggy, we might have gone to the same camp because that's that's precisely what we were waiting for at the MS call. Please just say my name so I can get, like, snack. Exactly. I know. The allure of the package has has dimmed a bit since then, but it still always makes me very excited to get one. Absolutely.

[10:41]Thomas Kail: Okay. So when did you realize, Tommy, that this book would be a project for you? You know, George and I did this book event at a Barnes and Noble, in New York City on Valentine's Day of twenty seventeen. And, you know, I had I'd read the the book, obviously, leading up to that. And, you know, then I was just like there to support Georgia in any way that I could, of course. And and it really was over those next few months, you know, a big part of the story for me is, you know, I'm always trying to find something to do that I haven't done, that that's quite appealing. Occasionally in our business, once you climb the hill, they're like, oh, here's a hill that looks just like it. Do you want to climb it again? And I was like, oh, no, not at all. But one of the things that thematically is obviously really present in George's book is it's the story of family and transition. It's a story of sibling love, as George has heard me say. I'm in the middle of two sisters, which I think is an enormously definitive part of my being and essence. And know

[11:39]Zibby Owens: Nikki.

[11:40]Thomas Kail: And you know my sister, as most people probably in the world do. I'm Nikki's younger brother to more people than I am anything else. And so I think that there was something about that at the core that struck me. I, myself, am from Polish and Russian Jewish immigrants. This was a chance to, through telling Georgia's story, investigate my own story. And one of the things that I believe in is if you tell a story with specificity, it transcends and becomes universal. So that's something I've thought about a lot. There's a writer named Donald Margulies, who said that in a talk that I heard in the early 2000s and always stayed with me. And the other part of the story is George's father. George's father was a wonderful actor and acting teacher and screenwriter and writer, and just like all around Renaissance man. I think he also like built houses and painted. I mean, it was a little embarrassing for the rest of us, but he was really, you know, he was a very impressive human. And when I was first starting to think about doing this, which was about my junior or senior year of college. So I didn't start becoming interested in making theater until then in a more formal way. And that's when I got to know Georgia. And there were many occasions where I would find myself consciously trying to sit next to her dad and just ask questions. He was one of the first professionals that I knew. And so that was very present. And when Georgia's father passed, I just felt this confluence. And so I think we figured out that I reached out to her in January 2018, somewhere around there, maybe January 9, Georgia, if my Swiss cheese brain serves and started talking to her about it. And I didn't have a television career or company to speak of at the time. It's not like, you know, I was working on this Fosse project, but it was just something that I thought that story and the canvas of the limited series felt like a match. And then Erica Lapaz, the wonderful Erica Lapaz and I had met in twenty eleven, twenty twelve doing a play that she wrote that I directed. And I just, I had a hunch. I had a feeling that Erica could be the person for it and could also be the person for Georgia because I knew that that would be a bond that needed to be deep and fast and true. And and Erica is is all of those things. And and the two of them really just fell for each other immediately after Erica read the book in twenty three hours and fifty seven minutes. Oh my gosh. She timed it? I mean, she says twenty four hours, but I think she was rounding up.

[14:02]Zibby Owens: Oh my gosh. And did you know that it would be a limited series? Is this did we ever think it was gonna be a movie? And, Georgia, did you have a a view about it one way or another? Did you ever conceive of it as a play since you have so much experience there as well? Like, how did how did the form come? And then also, as you thought about the form, how you picked the moments? I mean, there there's so many moments in the book that are, like, specific scenes. Like, how to pick which ones to translate and which ones to leave out and which ones to maybe fictionalize.

[14:32]Thomas Kail: Well, really quickly, and then I'll throw to G is, for me, content dictates form. And so there was something about the spread and the sprawl and the muchness of this family that felt like telling all of the story was the only way in. And so for me, that took it out of the theater. And then when I thought about two hours and twelve minutes, you know, trying to make the feature version of it, just felt like what's gonna be compressed and distilled and left out. And so there was something about this idea of, you know, fifty minutes, eight times, you know, a seven hour film. And could you break this into chapters like that? And that was the immediate thought. And Erica felt the same way. And and, Georgia, you obviously can can speak to your your initial thoughts. Yeah. I mean, I don't even the the story has so much breadth. You know? It's, you know, nine years and four continents and really 12

[15:22]Georgia Hunter: protagonists. And so I can't even imagine trying to tell that in the in the format of a of a of a movie. So I think that limited series is just, like, felt right to all of us. And I just have to say, though, I was so lucky in again, and that Tommy was really open and and Erica in the beginning just to how involved I was in the project. And they said, would you like to be involved every step of the way? I said, absolutely. I would love to be. And so I sat in the writer's room every day. I think it was, like, a five hours a day for five months maybe. And these writers are phenomenal. So the the the practice of the adaptation itself and of which seems to include I mean, it was just first of all, being a writer, you know, you're alone in a room a lot at your computer and typing in. So to be in a collaborative space like that with some of the brightest minds and and also just most compassionate humans I have met was incredible for me. And and I love going through and rewatching the episodes, and, really, there's so little that we left out. Like, it's amazing how much we were able to include for how little because if you read the book, it's, what, fourteen hours or something. You know? So it's like, we did have to compress here and there, but we even started the show a year earlier than the book opens. So we really wanted to show Addy at the table with his family So I don't have that in a memory or retrospect. Like Yep. So I give so much credit to Erica and to our phenomenal writers for that process and for kind of, you know, choosing what to include here and there, what to fictionalize. But I will say I was just bowled over by how how true we stayed to this story. And I I think that was always the intention too, right, with Tommy and Erica. We're like, you know, we're not gonna try to fictionalize anything that doesn't need to be fictionalized. You know? Like, maybe if we don't have time to tell everything, we we have to create a bridge to get from one event to the next that makes sense in the narrative, but nothing was made up. You know? So it was and I felt the same way in you know, as the granddaughter writing a story. Like, that responsibility was huge for me. It was it was half of it was telling the story in a way that honored the family members and that did it justice. And I think that was the refrain throughout the the writer's room as well as every single person who touched the project from the top down on the call sheet. I mean, it was like the designs the the set design and the costumes and the hair and the makeup. I mean, I can't tell you how many people came up to me on set over and over again to say, you for bringing us this project. It's a The fact that it's a true story and it's your family and you're here means so much to us. This is why we make television and we're gonna do everything we can to do it justice. And that just meant everything.

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[20:36]Zibby Owens: Well, I watched the whole thing within a week, which is saying a lot because I always say I, like, don't have time for anything. And I was like, I don't even care what I'm not doing right now. I'm doing this. Like, I guess it I came into the sleep piece of the of life because I just could not stop. What was it like when you two watched it? I mean, I'm sure it was different since you were part of the scenes and everything. But did you watch it with your extended family? Like, I'm imagining some Hallmark moment where well, I shouldn't say Hulu moment. I don't know. Where, you know, we're all together, you know, watching with the cousins. And was there anything like that? Or Yeah. There was. We had Hulu was amazing. They put together so many screenings. I think we had three major screenings before the show even launched. And one of them,

[21:14]Georgia Hunter: of course, we did LA in a premiere, it was amazing to be able to watch with the entire cast was incredible because we'd all fallen in love with each other. And they are my second family now. Just have them all back in the same beautiful room and beautiful space is incredible. But another screening we did was at the US Holocaust Museum, and we actually had an opportunity to donate our Quartz family artifacts while we were there. So we had this incredible where 32 relatives flew in from around the world, like France, Israel, Brazil, Switzerland, Colombia, The States, California, Miami, Vermont, you name it. And we all came together with little bits and pieces of the family's past, whether it was a passport, a false ID, my grandfather's snake skin wallet, a piece of music. And we had a ceremony where we like, kind of a private ceremony just with our close team and and the family. And then we all sat and watched the pilot together, and that kind of brought it all home for me. I mean, it was just it's such a beautiful episode. And to see the the cousins and the family members with tears coming down their cheeks and then afterwards, them meeting, they met Logan, they met Joey, and and telling us again and again, like, thank you, and this is just how we imagined it. You know? I've had cousins of my generation who didn't have a chance to meet their grandparents. That's just how I imagined my grandfather, Adam. I had I feel like I got to know him, and I get to meet him now. And so, yeah, it's it's been quite overwhelming. I think we'd be processing all this for a very long time, but but they've been so supportive, and and they're so grateful. And and then and then after that, they all came to New York, and then half of them came to an event in New York, and then half of them came to my house. And we watched episodes two and three together. So I actually sat in my living room with Jose watching the scene of his birth in Siberia. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's it's all pretty mind blowing. It's it's it's

[23:01]Zibby Owens: it doesn't get any more surreal than that. I mean, the most surreal is is the story itself and how unlikely all of it is. I mean, I keep replaying in my head the scene in the field where she has you know, Felicia goes ahead of her and she gets into the I'm like, I, how did that have how did she get out of that moment? So it's like all these moments that shouldn't have ended the way they did. And I also feel like in the movie, like, didn't know what was gonna happen. Right? You didn't know so and I didn't wanna, like, fast forward, to see so the suspense of it all, and then, of course, the parallels to today are terrifying. Right? And people who deny and this and that and and how you you captured a time before it got, you know, like, what happens in those in the, like, the shoulder season of the war, so to speak, and what decisions people make and to go here and there. And I don't know. Sometimes I feel like, are we in that moment again, and what do we do? Like, do you feel like that at all, or how do you feel about the show versus now and the timing of of everything?

[24:06]Thomas Kail: You know, I I think, you know, when Georgia set out to write this and and investigate this in 2009, and then when the book came out in 2017, you know, one of the things that we talked about, and I I often think about this play, Wit by Margaret Ensign, who wrote one play. She wrote the play, this gorgeous play. And it was about a woman struggling and dying of cancer, ovarian cancer. And she said, I hope this becomes a period piece. So, you know, when Margaret Atson wrote that play and wrote about that play, she said, I hope this becomes a relic. It becomes a thing about a time when this was a reality and then is not a reality. And I think that's what you always hope when you're, when you're writing about a time of this kind of extremity and dissension and antipathy and hate. And so we made this as a way to tell this family story and see if it could refract and reflect anything back to the viewer. And then, you know, we finished filming the show in June 2023, and then the world changed over, you know, those next few months in such a profound way, but it also felt like, you know, the show's design was to honor the book and to honor the intent of the book and tell the true story of this family. And one of the things that Erica and Georgia and the rest of the team, and we all spoke about deeply was that because the family is centered and to center a Jewish family and a Jewish experience in a story like this with women at the front, these are things that have not often been part of this genre. And we never know more than the family. So this experience that you had is something that's certainly in the book and something that felt as honest as it could be to the people experience it, they couldn't see over the wall and couldn't see around the corner. So there's no twenty twenty hindsight and us reflecting back. There's no trying to wrap something up and with a sort of a context that is anything different from what the experiences of these people we've invested in. And so I, you know, I think it's remarkable how intelligent and thoughtful audiences are and how many stories they can follow. We actually talked a lot about Game of Thrones as something that would, it would leave a character for a whole episode and then come back heavy. We do that as well, you know, the course as we're, you know, through the experience of making it. And so that was the offering, you know, and I think the job of the maker is to offer in that way. And then the thing that's been enormously meaningful for me, and I know George and Eric and I talk about this a lot, is how many people we hear about either that we know or that reach out to us that are watching the show with their kids, that are watching the show with their teenage kids. They're watching the show with kids in their twenties in college whose relationship to this time is being layered by the conversation that comes out of what George's

[27:04]Zibby Owens: book inspired. Yeah. That was actually something that I found particularly poignant because there aren't that many in-depth sort of chronicles of what happens when your kids get just a little bit older. Right? And the love that this family had and how close they were. Just because your kids are in their twenties, and I mean, I have teenagers and also little kids, but it's not so far away for me at least. And you don't lose that desire to still protect and congregate and all of it even though they're older. Like, you can't and I felt like this was such a you know, especially Addy, who just his longing for his family and not knowing for so long what was going on and feeling so adrift because being part of his family meant so so much to him. And then to have you here also, mean, crazy. But I think that time of life is so formative, and we're they're not quite over the the hump of you know, it's it still matters so much. And I feel like any parent

[28:03]Thomas Kail: with eight kids who are a little older or not can relate to that as well. Absolutely. I I agree. It is interesting too. I was just talking to to somebody this week about, you know, who has, you know, a kid in their 20s and they reached out to them about this small thing. And I just said, like, you did it right. And like, there's still, you know, you said, the desire doesn't dissipate. And once you experience that, it makes you both understand and not understand things about your own family. Like, that some things make perfect sense, then some things become more confusing. But but there's also just there's something to this idea, like, simplicity of the story was, can we get back around the dinner table? Yes. Can we have dinner together one more time? And that's what, you know, that's really the frame of this story. And so when we went out with this pitch and everybody said, thank you, it's beautiful, but it's not for us. We knew that, and this was in summer of twenty nineteen. We knew that just wasn't the right time. But at that point, the book had made its way into the world with real impact. So we knew that there was something about the story. Just needed to find the partner. And we repitched effectively the same story about a family trying to have dinner together, but it takes them nine years, six months into the pandemic. And Hulu understood in a way that's, you know, the the context of the world then let us all have this universal experience of of the the desperation and the longing to to for the for all of the things that we thought would would just be there. And that's what's threatened in our story in a different way. And and obviously, we all experienced as we were making this and making this coming out of COVID, you know, there was something that got circulated the other day, pictures of us all on set were all masked. You know, I, you know, but, know, I mean, like there we were like making this thing, you know, late twenty two into '23 in Bucharest, Romania and Spain, you know, and then we could sit together with George's family, with the Holocaust Museum opening their doors to us, and we could all be in the room together experiencing it. And there's something about that, that community that is, you know, I remember many times as someone who has, you know, spent a lot of time in the performing arts and in the live experience, I said, like, I didn't know if it was coming back either. And then there we were in DC together, and there we were in LA together and New York. I was with, you know, I know I was with Georgia and Eric and I can just looked around, it's like, you know, like, this is it. Like, there's there is nothing the family said we did it right. The museum opened its, you know, you know, it's embraced to us. Like, there's what else is there? Wow.

[30:38]Zibby Owens: And Georgia, you know, I'm much more familiar with book marketing at this point in my life. I have, you know, family and film and all that. But how have you found marketing the series and having to get the word out about that versus going on book tour and having to do the things to get a book out into the world?

[30:57]Georgia Hunter: It's a good question. I mean, I think the teams at Hulu have been remarkable in in their efforts to get it out. I think social media has played a huge part. There are billboards up all over LA and Miami and some other key cities, and that's really fun to see. I don't know. I the book, I think, gained momentum a little bit slowly, and I think it became a word-of-mouth book. And so I'm kinda curious. I think we came out with a with a bang with this show, and a lot of people watched it. But I'm getting more and more and more and more watchers reaching out to me now, and I think the word-of-mouth is happening with the show as well. And I think that's the best compliment you can ever have is, like, if you give someone a book that you really liked. Right? Like, you should read this. This makes me think of it. When someone watches a show and says, hey. You should watch this. I think you'd love it. So, you know, I I we've done a we've done quite a few events. There's been the marketing effort from the teams has been I'm so impressed by everything. They've Hulu's put together these incredible side by sides with, like, real footage from family reunions next to footage from the show. So I think one thing I really appreciate and love with the way they approached how they talk about our show is it was never this, like, holocaust thriller. You know? It was Mhmm. Story. Yes. And let's lean into that. And and it's what makes it different. And and I think they've done such a good job and put together the most beautiful material around it. And to me, that that's so important. That that's the aspect that they're kind of promoting. And the way the cast talks about it too, I mean, they've been doing so many interviews, and I don't know where they find time. But they talk about the show in the way in in in a way that feels different, I guess, from from other shows too in the way it's touched them and the way it's changed their lives. So and the other thing that I think has been really moving for me is that the like, talked about families watching together. Schools have really embraced this. So many invitations from schools to come and meet with students. The like, Beverly Hills High just assumed assigned it to 500 kids. You know? Like, it's their summer reading. I'm gonna be out there in September to talk about it. And to me, I mean, that was one of my biggest takeaways when I when it came out was you do spend a lot of time imagining, you know, as an author and and the writers in the room, like, what was life like back then? And then you see this cast. And, again, all the departments bringing it to life in the most detailed way, the specificity that Tommy mentioned. I mean, it's just remarkable, and you lose sense of history. You're living it right there with them. And I think for kids, especially, you know, whatever the age, like middle school, high school, college, to be able to watch in a way that they can react relate to this very ordinary family. And they weren't the military family. They weren't the you know, they they were a family that I think all of us can relate to, and there are so many of them that you probably relate to at least one of them, right, or with some form of a dynamic, whether it's a sibling or a parent child or so I I love that schools are embracing it and that Hulu is embracing that new connection as well. So, I don't know, Tommy, what would you say about the marketing of it? Well done, Hulu. You know,

[34:06]Thomas Kail: there's a couple of things that spark in hearing you say that Suji. One is, you know, the soloness of the writer on the book tour and how you are bolstered, right? You know, we have a cast of, you know, 12 in the main cast. There's, you know, there's Erica by her side there, you know, whenever I can, you know, do anything to advocate for this, it's such a joy. And so there's the kind of the team ness of it, which I think is quite lovely to go and talk about something. I've made a bunch of stuff I've realized that came from books. A fair amount of work that I've done. And what I've said to the authors, whether Sam Lawson and Fawcie or Ron Chernow with Hamilton or David Marinus wrote this book about Vince Lombardi that I made a play out of with my friend, Eric Timmonson, with the play that I directed. You know, Cheryl Stray wrote this book called Tiny Beautiful Things, which really rocked me. And I just, I became obsessed with the idea of a community experiencing that together. So with my friend, Nia, we reached out to Cheryl and made a play out of that. What I said to all of those, you know, those inspirations for these projects was, this is something to be a companion. My hope is whatever we do leads people to the book and they live alongside. The book will always be the book. And I think that's what look, George's book has legs, right? Like there's We're still talking about this book came out in 2017. We all know how impossible that is. Like, it's the unlikeliest of things. And the way that George's book, that sort of gift economy of the book, When you, I always say like, you know, the reason that musicals run longer than plays is when you see a play and it's really good, you say, Oh, you should go and see it. When you see a musical, you say, I'm gonna take you there. And so like you have the, so what that means is like, there's more tickets. You know, all those things last. With the book, it's the same thing. Like every book that, you know, I buy a book and then I buy it for four people or I give them my copy. You know, there's something about that as it just got into the world. And so the fact that people are continuing to find the show, I mean, you're a really perfect example of that, Zebbe. Like you found this thing, however you found, however many things, I mean, you watched this series, which is eight episodes. I mean, you host a podcast about how you don't have time. I know. You know what I mean? Like, so it's like, that's very meaningful for us. Like we, everyone is listening. Like we're all, you know, we all understand that. And so it just, it's, it means so much when people take the time to do it. And there's also, there's barriers to entry. Everybody says, oh, it's a story about that. I know that story. Or the world is what the world is. Do I really wanna go through that? It's a story about a family that does make it through, but there is loss, you know, obviously commingled with that. It's a story that has romance and love and all the complexity, what it means to be young in the midst of this because life continues on even within like this this horror. So all of that is there and and people are are now someone told me about it and oh, like, here I am, here I am, here I am. We're seeing that happen. And that's what's so lovely about getting a chance to talk to you about this, to continue to advocate for, you know, for anybody to find George's family. Oh, well, I'm sorry I came so late to it. I don't know how I missed it. Was It's not that late. Wasn't I mean, it wasn't late at all. It's weeks. Well, no, the show, but the book. I don't know how I missed the book. I I don't know. Anyway, here I am, and it was great. And actually, the show kind of scared my dog because of some of the scenes were very loud. She's a very she's very sensitive. So I ended up finishing it, like, on my phone, like, watching it quietly. Anyway, it was very, very, very meaningful. I can't stop thinking about it still, and I always will. And it just

[37:27]Zibby Owens: is so important and uplifting and all all the things that are important in life. Right? Love, connection, family, community, tradition, customs, connection in this completely, you know, bifurcated world. It's just so wonderful. And the two of you and the whole team involved did such a good job. And the book too, I mean, oh my gosh. So thank you for bringing this family, your family to life and bringing them to me and my own you know, change the fabric of my life in those ways that that really inspiring productions can do in books and stories. So thank you both so much so very much. Really appreciate it. Thank you. So much. We love being with you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books. If you love it, please leave a review and follow us on social at Zippy Owens and at Zippy Readers.