Brooke Shields calls into The Bobby Bones Show to talk about the movie she’s in with Amy called “Holiday Harmony,” her podcast, being a child star and more!
Shields is an acclaimed actress who recently launched her podcast “Now What? With Brooke Shields.” Speaking about her podcast, she said when you’ve been around for so long, there are only so many areas where you get to authentically be yourself, and her podcast reflects that. She never really set out to do a podcast, but she thinks people know her well enough to know she’ll be vulnerable to them, and they can feel safe. She admits she wasn’t too good in the beginning but is getting better at it. She’s learning to air her insecurities in a way that’s not too polished. She compared it to a book. With a book, you can work with words and get what you want. Whereas a podcast, you’re admitting things and not hiding behind anything. Guests are willing to hop on her podcast too, but they usually want to come on to promote something. If they don’t want to come on it’s usually because they’ve been in the news for something recently. But so far, none have said nothing is off limits. What she wants people to get out of her podcast is that she is a woman, going through the same things other women are too.
Growing up a child actress, Shields doesn’t know what to consider normal, but admits she didn’t have a conventional childhood. Her mom never let her go to professional children’s school and she didn’t live in Los Angeles until she was on a TV show. Her real life was with her mom and dad in separate families and still getting that regular school schedule until she was in her early twenties. She does say that her vacations and extracurricular activities were not conventional, but her mom would always have the production team send a friend of her sister with her, so she always had someone around her age. She learned to feel like it was normal.
Shields went to Princeton University, but she received no special treatment there. All the teachers made sure not to give her any extra attention and graded her harder because they had something to prove. A lot of people questioned if she only got in since she was famous, which she admits was hard. She recalled a time during her freshman year when she had a press conference, and the press was shocked by her level of maturity. She wasn’t looking to anyone else for answers and she was using bigger words and they didn’t like non-malleable Brooke.
They haven’t come to her yet to ask if she would do a reboot of the show Suddenly Susan, but if they did, she’d say yes in a heartbeat. They cancelled her at 98, which was planned she thinks due to finances. But she thinks the television company would probably not think the show merits a reboot. The same thing happened with Lipstick Jungle. At the time when these shows got cancelled, she admits she was very bitter. But the older she’s gotten, the more she realizes how less personal things are meant to be taken. It’s just business.
Shields next project is the HBO Max Christmas movie Holiday Harmony, out November 24th. For a while, holiday movies to her were taboo. When she was pitched a Christmas movie, she was prepared not to like it because it’s formulaic. But she admits that every now and then one will come up that touches a cord and that’s what she loves about them. She thinks for her that rom-coms and holiday movies are based in joy, and they might be predictable, but you still want to be part of it.
Holiday Harmony with Brooke Shields and Amy Brown comes out November 24th on HBO max.