UNscripted with Jonathan Harounoff: Tovah Feldshuh on Antisemitism, Israel & Nobody Wants This - BUZZFEED INC

welcome to unscripted i'm your host jonathan haranoff my guest today is a true trailblazer for more than 50 years she's lit up broadway television and film she's the author of lilyville mother daughter and other roles i've played and right now she's starring in one of the most talked about shows on Netflix. Nobody wants this. Season three arrives on October the 22nd. She's also starred in one of my personal favorite movies of the year, Tuna, alongside Dustin Hoffman, Leo Raz and Leo Woodall. We're going to get into all of that and so much more. Tova Feldschuh, welcome to Unscripted. Thank you, Jonathan. So I wanted to start towards the beginning, and some of your fans and the audience may not know this, but you are a classically trained piano player, pianist. But when did you know firstly that you wanted to become an actor? I was at the National Music Camp when I was 13, 14, and 15, and I competed for concertos. I was doing the Mendelssohn G minor when I Was 13. I got to the finals. I did not get the privilege of playing with the orchestra. The next year, I did the Mozart D minor. I got to the finals. I even played for Van Cliburn. I was very excited. But I got to the finals, but again, was not chosen to play with the orchestra. It was then clear to me that I would be an also-ran in this particular area. And I asked myself why I was not, let us say, placing first. One of the reasons is as much as I love piano and as much as it has trained the precision of my mind is that it's a solo instrument and that I really like to be with people so at the same time that I was studying piano and theory etc I also was part of the operetta workshop and the operettaworkshop had 110 campers in it and the first year they did HMS Pinafore and there were three singing roles and I was chosen for one of them even though it was just Cousin Hebe and it was a few lines I was taken out of the chorus and immediately got a speaking let's say speaking and a singing role and the next year same thing happen with Pirates of Penzance? And I said, oh, maybe I should try out for theater. So I was a dual major in my second summer and even got an award for being a dual major. In drama and in piano. And I got Little Mary and Little Mary Sunshine, the lead in Death Takes a Holiday. I was immediately chosen to do the big roles at Bruno Theater as a theater combined major. And it was then that I said, wow, maybe I should turn my musical training into musical theater and just theater in general. My father was a litigator in your country, not of origin, but in England would be considered a barrister. So he was an orator. My brother and I were expected to be able to make toasts at the Shabbat table and any other table, as a matter of fact, to Orate. And it worked out for me very, very well. But when I asked my mother to go to Juilliard, having graduated from Scarsdale High School, she said, you're not going to a trade school. So that was the end of that. And I went to Sarah Lawrence and studied philosophy and was sent to Florence to study art and learn Italian, sent to Mexico to learn Spanish, to France to learn French. I'm fluent in those three languages, along with English and prayer bookkeeper. I was given a widespread education. I was expected to be a global citizen from the time I was a little girl. My father was in the United States Army Intelligence during World War II, and his fluency in German saved his life. He also spoke French. And he was based in England? He was based in England, and he was transferred out of Manchester barracks in the infantry to G2 under General Dwight David Eisenhower, and entered the intelligence, and it absolutely saved his wife. He did go to France, but not on D-Day. Did he tell you about his experiences in England? I think he felt it was the greatest contribution of his entire life other than loving my mother and having his children and making sure that we, my father used to say to me as well as my mother, remember who you are because the world will remind you anyway. And the metaphor for that was remember that you are an American Jew. Enjoy it. You're in a democracy where anything is possible. Be proud of who you are. And when I was with Lior Raz, who my adjustador, who not only originated Fowder, but I had the honor of doing tuner with him. As he said, he's done with the Holocaust. He is a proud, courageous Jewish man of accomplishment. He moves forward. He moves forward, as do I, though I'm not done with The Holocaust. I don't think many diaspora Jews are. In all events, the biggest thing about my personality is that I can't bear my own mediocrity. So if it shows up, I put more effort into escaping that kind of lack of mastery. And if it's not in my back pocket, that's okay. I had an early defeat in my academic career. I was a student I had four A's and a B plus. And it wasn't an A in the Felchew family, it was an F, you know. What was the B plus? In mathematics. and now I'm like an idiot savant with numbers. Maybe that part of my brain was less used so that partof my brain is still 15 years old and the rest of me is my chronological age. But that was one of the markers that it looked like I had a shot at really contributing in theater and I was trained classically at the Guthrie and in Shakespeare at the Old Globe and then at Stratford and then came to New York on Broadway by luck. For those who haven't watched Tuna, it's a brilliant movie pianos play a central role in the movie did did that passion of yours was there a connection there was that a coincidence there's a complete connection because my fingers also would play along with havana rose and with dear leo and uh you know leo had not really mastered the piano he worked very hard to be as excellent and marvelous as he was and he did it when i got the call and the offer it said would you like to play dustin Hoffman's wife. And I said, just send the script and just say yes. That's all I did. But the negotiation was over in about 30 seconds. And, I was well taken care of and properly paid and all those things. But, the part of Marla Horowitz is basically to support, preserve and protect her husband and her adopted son. And. I enjoyed the role. I would have liked to have contributed more to the script but this is the way the script was managed and i felt that i i did my job well you certainly did and uh speaking of of motherly roles that's something that i think has you know become synonymous with you in in recent years especially in nobody wants this where you play uh bina rock love mother of noah who is played by adam brody of course and the chemistry on screen with between the two of you is so engrossing and so relatable with the Jewish mother-son dynamic. What is it about that role of the mother that suits you so much, would you say? Well, I think that any role you play, you have to find coincidence with your own neshuma, with your old soul. So what does Bina represent that's heroic about Bina, that makes me love her? Because I'm to be her, so I'm on her side of the tennis court. I'm inside her soul. That's my obligation to become her. She represents the old values and the old wisdom. She's just not talking out of the side of her mouth. She knows how hard marriage is. She knows the power of cellular coincidence, which is a phrase I actually coined, at least in my knowledge. Andrew, my husband's mother, was a classical pianist. My mother, Lily, was classical pianists. I wanted to be with my mommy. I was a classic pianist, So when Andrew has the Sonos on in our apartment in Manhattan and it's Chopin or Schubert or Bach, we're not just listening to Chopin or Schuppert or Bach. We are with our mothers. We have that tremendous early bond, lucky, along with being from the same social strata, from the same educational POV, fromthe same race and the same religion. I'm not saying you have to marry within your race or your religion at all. I'm just saying those can be conveniences, and that's what Bina represents. She came across the borders of Russia, escaping a totalitarian government to come to America, and she knows the value of freedom, but she also knows the valuable of a marriage that you're supposed to stay on the field of play. and she has great questions uh that her dear son has fallen in love with this with the ideal you know christian woman with the shiksa she's the obstacle to the culmination of that relationship without a lot of forethought and that will be reflected in season three we'll definitely get more into nobody wants this um i wanted to jump back into process because it seems like you and something that I've an expression that you continue to invoke in the interviews you've done is about over preparing so you can go with the flow yeah what does over preparing actually look like before a play or before a movie or an interview or what does it look like for Tova Felsher it means an early exploration if you can afford that time and I have a very crunched calendar this fall very exciting widespread calendar but you know I'm going to sing at Lincoln Center and I'm preparing two songs. How do I anchor that? How do you make it so deep in your presentation that it applies to the memory banks of the people listening to you? That as you sing, every time we say goodbye, I die a little. Every time we say goodbye I wonder why a little? What is that? Well, to me, that was my father's story with World War II. Drafted in the Army at 32 because he and my mother, Lily, could not have children. That's what the doctors told them. And when that draft notice arrived, they immediately conceived David, my older brother. My father went into boot camp in Columbus, Georgia, Fort Benning, I believe it was. And then he came north to Fort Dix by the time my mother was finishing her sixth month. And he was to meet her on October the 16th, 1943, at the Columbia Army football game. And as she was preparing the thermos of hot coffee and those sandwiches, which they probably used Wonder Bread in those days. I don't even know if there was Levy's Jewish rye. She was preparing the sandwiches. She got a call and she answered the phone and they said, is this Mrs. Sidney Felchew? And she said, yes. And they said this is the American Red Cross. Private Felchue will not be able to attend the game. And that was the last she heard or saw my father for two and a half years. He'd been shipped out in the middle of the night to England, loose lips, sink ships, shipped to England to prepare for the Allied invasion of Normandy. And David would be born January 30th, 1944, and would not meet his father till he was over two years old. And then I tell that story and go into that song, because that's what I think anchors that song. In excavating any character. You have to go deep enough to find the river of common human experience. You're both Marla Horowitz, the mother, and Bina Rakloff, the father, and Golda Meir, the mother, but these are different mothers under different circumstances. Likewise, since actors have become siloed, and by siloing, I mean, I think Adam Brody will be playing Jewish heroic characters for the rest of his long career. He's a young man. He's in his 40s. I, too, in the last 10 years, have been asked to play one Jewish heroic character after another, and sometimes not so heroic, Leona Helmsley. And I just did a marvelous series, which unfortunately is not continuing, called M.I.A. Missing in Action about the Drug Culture in Miami, where I played an intelligence agent. To make this clear in the siloing of Jews having to play Jews and Puerto Ricans having to pay for the drugs, I'm not going to play Puerto Ricians. You know, we were trained 50 years ago to do anything. I played Juliet. I I played not only a nun in Cyrano, but I played Isabella in Measure for Measure, a very problematic Shakespearean play. I played Maria Morelli. Two of my nominations were playing Catholics, an Italian Catholic and a Brazilian Catholic. You never lost a role. Whoever was best at it got it. But that seems to have faded. Now there's a lot of debate about the Jewish person has to pay a Jewish person and woman has to play a woman and man, man. Right. The fear of othering and the woke movement has increased the tent and inclusion, which may be good, but not increase the real estate. So for the actor, I think that's problematic, and you better do plenty of precision homework to make sure your characters vary, because they may not vary in ethnic background. And what with the backdrop of global anti-Semitism now, I am thrilled to be chosen to play a Jewish matriarch, and that will never change, never. Do you think now is the most important time in your life to play a Jewish matriarch? I think it's a very important time to stand up straight and remember who you are and to study history. To me, there are two types of anti-Semites, the ignorant and the evil. What's worse? They're both very dangerous. It just depends on what the actions are of the human beings who have these particular feelings. But if you look at history, including that, like it or not, the Jews were the indigenous minority of a piece of land, now called Israel, was called Judea. That's how they got our name. So like it or not, Israel's the one democracy in the Middle East. Like it or Not, these are the facts. Is that democracy worth defending? We don't like Putin, but do we want to wipe out Russia? We do not love certain policies of China, but do we want to wipe out China. Why in God's name would somebody want to wipe out an entire country? I don't understand that logic. Do these difficult conversations ever come out on set? No. It's obviously a very important integral part of who you are, so how do you balance and compartmentalize all of that? I switch channels and do my job. I spoke to Julie Menon. She's a brilliant head of the I can see that she does that. She just switches channels and does her job. Jessica Tisch does her job. She also did a very moving speech, Jessica Tisch in Central Synagogue when she was at her home plate and there was an anti-Semitic incident. My job also as Bina, but as Tova, is to love the people on the set at my place of work, to be kind and if there's going to be any inhumanity, and I haven't met any of it. We're a rom-com, and we do not represent any political point of view, nor is it my job to represent any politial point of you in the script, nor am I given that material. We are a rom con, which is a metaphor for world peace, of a Jewish man falling in love with a Christian person, Christian girl, and then making it work. It does not come on the set, and I don't believe it will come on set for season four. Hopefully there will be a season four." mentioned your parents living through the early part of the 20th century do you see any parallels to what they spoke about then to to what we're seeing today well they didn't speak about it much did they brought up in scars you what you experienced what you knew of i didn't realize that i was being brought up the golden age of anti-semitism that anti- semitism was very under the rug it just killed six million jews and 11 million people they've killed five other 5 million other people who were homosexuals, who were communists. Don't forget, like it or not, that the radical Islamists have openly told us their plan and said, we will start with Saturday and we will end with Sunday. We will start mit the Jews and we end with the Christian world. If you count the churches in Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, there ain't many. so we have an open society in America and over 4,000 mosques now all this is fine with me as long as you don't want to take away my country I believe in the democracy and the constitution of the United States of America I'm a virulent patriot for what George Washington and the founding fathers put together I'm not a socialist I'm certainly not an anti-Semite I love all people. I don't want anybody to die. Not only that, but the Jew's obligation is to meet the inhumane with the humane. That's part of who we are. That's in the structure of the Torah and the Talmud and the Kabbalah even, the kindness. The core of Judaism to me is not deism. You don't have to believe in God to be a good Jew. You have to do the mitzvah, the deed of loving kindness. So my parents brought me up. There were no felt shoes I even knew of. we're from Vienna. My father's side, my mother's side is from England, and before that from Russia. I knew of no felters who even lost their lives in the Holocaust until I went to Yad Vashem in 1982, and somebody had just put in records of certain members of our family that were told they were being put on a train to Palestine, and it went north where the Ukraine, and they shot them. It was before the concentration camps. These are people who abided by the government. because I am not the child or the grandchild of survivors. I don't have the visceral scars of that. I don'T have people asking for free seats at Yom Kippur because they suffered the war. I have parents that are philanthropic and brought up in a big house in Skarsgård with my own horse. My father used to say, how often can a little girl tell a big animal what to do? And all this stuff of riding a horse and ride, I wrote it very, very well. Why? Because I couldn't settle for less. I took lessons until I got good at it. I'm in my 70s. I've been on Broadway over 50 years. I've starred in Broadway musicals. And I don't put a stop date on my lessons with Kathleen Adams, who's on the faculty, brilliant, brilliant teacher at NYU. I'll study with her for as long as the rest of my artistic life. So my folks did not expose me to the horrors of World War II. I only heard about my father's heroic participation, about him getting the Bronze Star from General Eisenhower, about him leaving as a new dealer for Franklin Roosevelt and coming back as a person who would vote for Dwight David Eisenhower in 1952 because it was his general, and he was a great, great general. My father was a varied Republican. I would call him a common-sense Republican. My mother died in the World Democrat and used to have Democratic luncheons at our home. Renita Lowy and the various congresswomen of Westchester County. I am still a registered Democrat in New York, but I am picking my candidates one by one. I need common sense and I need the support of the state of Israel. How's that going now with the Democrat Party? Well, how do you think it's going? I'm not a registered Democratic. So I choose very carefully. And anybody from Michigan who said I would vote for Hamas or that we deserve 9-11, you want to vote him into office? you're voting for the potential death of the United States. This is not a joke. Part of the Islamist agenda, which is well thought out and the long plan, these are extraordinary people. They're not kidding around. We haven't had anybody try to take this country in over 250 years. And yes, the British came in and took it from the Dutch, and they did terrible things to the indigenous population to the Native American. But that was not the America I've been born into, or my parents or my grandparents have been here since 1901. So if you want to come to this country and not be an American, I say maybe choose another country. And if not, England is, how about Stockholm? Crime is up 40% in Stockholm because of the immigration. So you wantto come to my country, the United States, and become an American like the Jews did and the Czechs and the Romanians and the British and the French and all the immigrants that came through not just Ellis Island but prior to that, Castle Gardens. Come one, come all. If you want to come to my country and impose Sharia law and anti-constitutional precepts, please don't expect us to support that. This is still the American experiment. It takes the cooperation of good men doing good things. Do you think, by what you're saying, radical Islam is the greatest threat to America today? Yes. Just look at the UK. The kinder the country is, the more humane, the more they will be made to pay. Also, in support of the Muslim community, they started out in, let's see, he was born in 570, he had his first vision, Muhammad, in 622. So they started out with one country, which was the Arabian Peninsula. So they really started with Mecca and then Medina, and in the second city where he had been thrown out of one city, he started to militarize. And Islam, to my understanding and my study, and I hope I'm not wrong, it means submission. The actual word means submission, right? The Christians pray in churches, the Jews pray in synagogues, and many of this particular religion prays on our public streets with the intent to show power. This is an intent. They now have 57 countries, 57 Islamic countries. And people who were in Western clothes and going to universities are under burqas. Some women in some countries only have their eyes showing. That's a life? Maybe that's a, maybe that's the life for some people, but that is not the life of an American, not for somebody from the United States who've been brought up under a democratic two-party system. I say we better open our eyes. And I do believe that the judeo-christian community here in this country has awakened we will start with saturday we will end with sunday this is not an idle sentence with october the 7th being the wake-up call over the 7 so i wanted to talk about october 7th one of the earliest warning signs of october the 7 was of course the yom kippur war and you played golda meir uh one of your more most memorable roles, who of course led Israel through the Yom Kippur War. I saw you described October the 7th as the 73 war on steroids. I'm curious, how has that day, October the 7th, changed your relationship with Judaism, with Israel, the Middle East? Well, it's what I've been called to do. I am with you today. Tomorrow I will be raising money for a Jewish organization with my beloved Jackie Tong. Incidentally, I love everybody and nobody wants this. I'm not using that as an idle statement. As I say, this is New York talking, not somebody trying to smear you. Those are fine artists, and we get on as I wish the UN did. We're a bunch of authentic artists who really care about each other. So it's what I'm called on to do. I'm working for McCain, DeVita, Dumb. It is my hope to raise $12 million more. I was with Douglas Murray in Palm Beach last February at the Breakers, and we raised a fortune for ambulances, blood banks, and mother's milk banks. Tell me another country that has a mother's milf bank for orphaned children or children with half a parent or children with PTSD, young widows where their husbands have been slaughtered. That's what Magen David Adam does. It's also, I believe, trying to fund a farm for therapy for PTSD children. So I'm working for them. I just came from the Lions of Judah in Toronto. I'm no heroine. I get the calls. And what I try to do is say yes for righteous causes. And if a Catholic charity called me tomorrow, I would say yes to them. I would says yes to the them. Give me a humane, live and let live, purpose, and you can come to me. But to accuse the Jewish people of genocide is like wild. It's right out of Hitler's playbook. You take the victim and you make the victim the perpetrator. If a Jewish person describes what's happening in Israel as a genocide, does it make a difference to you if they're Jewish or not Jewish? It makes a difference in the community. That's the problem. There are some people with big followings that have stated this. All I can say is you know how I stand and that I believe that the perseverance of the existence of the state of Israel is crucial to the well-being of the democratic world, of the free world, and also to the global Jewish community, but absolutely to the free world. You think America? Of course Israel needs the United States. The United States needs Israel. Believe you me, if that place, that little Rhode Island, that Little Strip of Nothing Land, I mean, why is there such an obsession to destroy a country? You explain that to me. It's beyond logic to want to. We're all a 15.8 million people. The global Jewish population is not recuperated from the Holocaust when we were 18 million people, we're just 15.9 million people but because of the Nobels and the copyrights, people think we're billions or over 2 billion Muslims, Over two billion Christians who are coming to our aid, I might say, look, we're in a time where we have the horseshoe effect, where socialism and anti-Semitism are like a horseshoe. They're trying to meet. It's a very challenging time that not only must you be strong, but you have to speak truth to global lies cleverly, cleverly publicized, brilliantly done. I have one child who went from Harvard to Oxford in financial economics. Brilliant, brilliant student. And he was at Said Business School. And we all thought, how wonderful. Look at what this wonderful country is being funded in England by Qatar. What we didn't understand is that in the documents and the contracts between the money exchange and the educational institution would be faculty members with a certain POV. And that way you can educate a whole generation of children who are going to stand up and say free Palestine without understanding that that could be the genocide of six million Jews and two million Arab Israelis in a sliver of land called Israel. It's beyond common sense and comprehension. I say live and let live. I don't want to hurt anybody. I don' t want anybody to die. I'm a mother, you know. I breastfed. I gave birth. Children came through my body to live a life, wonderful children. And it astonishes me. Somebody would come across a border, and the idealists who fully believe that we could live in peace, that they're beheaded, they're burned, they choked to death, babies are choked. There's another terrible crime that apparently happened where you were made to make love to an immediate family member, a father to a daughter, or they'd kill you. That was a terrible, terrible intended, more than a massacre. It was intended to bring Israel to its knees, psychologically. And they didn't get their wish. Now, when I raise money for the righteous causes of Israel, I say, tonight I'm asking you for something very inexpensive. I'm only asking you from money. I'm not asking you for your blood. I'm Not asking you for your sons. I'm not asking you for your daughters. That's you and I, Jonathan. You don't get to go to university. I don't get to go to Columbia and get a fellowship to the Guthrie. I get in a uniform for two to three years and defend a state and perhaps lose my life. That's what they're up against. I spent two years at the United Nations, saw some good things, saw more terrible things. And I know you had a couple of encounters as well at the UN. Could you talk a bit about? Well, the wonderful Sheryl Sandberg, who's Jewish, went to the UN and we accompanied her, at least 50 of us, maybe 100 of us. Where she had to prove through first responders that Jewish women were raped and murdered on October 7th. I mean, that's like giving out pamphlets to the school system in New York to say on 9-11, a group of men got in, 19 men got on a plane and decided to crash it into the Trade Center, never using the word terrorist. The intent is to destroy the United States of America as we know it. These incredible people have stated it. Some people call these kind of people barbarians. Others understand if they're barbarians, some of them are very brilliant because they're in the long haul. They're patient. They understand Immigration, propagation of children, infiltration of city councils. You can infiltrate love. Domination and conquest. If you don't see that, as I would say to my immediate family, I only wish I were nuts. I wish I was nuts. That what I'm saying is ridiculous, you know, discredited. It's not discreditive. It's happening right now. What do we do about it? What do we do about a man in a suit, articulate, gentle, talking to people saying there are 4,000 mosques, I want each mosque to please fund a scholarship, one scholarship for one student every year. We'll have 4, 000 students and 8, 000 student. And in 15, 20 years or in 10, we will have 50, 000 marvelous Muslim students studying what? Political science, journalism and government. They're not asking them to become doctors, inventors. They're asking them to take hold through the American political system for as long as they allow it to last and get themselves into Congress to a majority. This is not the situation now, but I strongly suggest we wake up. I'm a practical woman, Jonathan. If you want to kill me or kill my country, I object. I object to that. I want to shift away from the Holy Land for a bit back to the holy grail of netflix right now nobody wants this i personally enjoyed the first two seasons my wife and i had plenty of discussion i'm sure you've heard of the kinds of discussion it has inspired one piece of critique that is always coming up in our circles is how jewish women on the show come across as uptight not as fun while the non-jewish characters including the protagonist is is the fun outgoing one do you think that's fair i i know the beginning you said that the show set out to be a rom-com it's not meant to be anything beyond that necessarily but did you expect the kind of reaction that it got and do you find that assessment that i mentioned fair we didn't know we had a hit i didn't Know when i did the holocaust miniseries it would change the textbooks in germany and they would start teaching about the Holocaust. Incidentally, Berlin and Germany, in my experience, has been a very friendly place to visit. I feel very lucky to have been welcomed there as I was. The Jewish boy falling in love with the Shiksa goddess, that's as old as, you know, you can go back hundreds of years. In terms of the Jewish woman, one of the great privileges of being a Jew is the fear of extinction. When you have the fear of extinction, that usually leads to, as it has, the most Nobels, the most copyrights. It leads to Jonas Salk. It leads to Google. It leads to the cell phone. These were all done by Jewish people. So if you're going to boycott Jewish goods from parts of Israel, I understand the concern about Judea and Samaria, and it's a very complicated, messed up situation there. But you're cutting yourself off from one of the most crucial aspects of your luxurious life, because all these Jewish boys, men and women, founded phenomenal things. Okay, back to the Jewish woman. So if the Jewish woman has a higher anxiety level, to me that's epigenetic. There's nothing to be ashamed about that if they're more um perceivably worrisome ledor vador from generation to generation i'm not uptight bina isn't uptight she's just overstepping her bounds and trying to preserve and protect her son now i don't think she's overstepped her bounds why because i play her how much of it is acting versus any person who aspires to be a great artist when they are doing another character they are a beingness not an actingness if you saw me acting you would say she's not very good so the idea is for you to believe me and that takes over prepare to go with the flow it takes relaxation of your face of your body it takes knowing what you're doing i believe that marriage is the hardest thing that noah could do and obviously noah has no judgment as to who he chooses. He was supposed to marry the first girl, and he did not, and he fell in love with this blonde thing that walked into the shul with her midriff showing, her skin showing. She doesn't even know how to pass, and it's problematic. Now, Joanne has come through for me. When I was caught eating the prosciutto in season one, episode eight, she defended me, so she might be very interesting. And, of course, in my religion, if she converts, that she is to be welcomed more than anyone else because she has chosen to become a Jew. If she takes the mikvah and converts, maybe there'll be another scenario for this situation. I don't know what the terms and conditions are with Netflix, but are there any hints that you can give us about season three, things that we can be excited, even more excited than we already are about what to expect? I cannot. I'm under a non-disclosure. I'm unter a gag order, but the trailer hints at it. And I think that these actors are so good, and the chemistry between Noah and Joanne is fantastic. And I Think My Chemistry with My TV Son is fantastic and very authentic to the Jewish mother-Jewish son relationship. It makes me smile to go to work. I love working for Aaron Foster and working with wonderful Jenny Conner and Bruce Eric Kaplan, the showrunners and the show major writers. It's a privilege. So I want to end on marriage and family. And I think one of the most touching aspects of your story for me is the long relationship, a very beautiful relationship that you have with your husband. And you touched on it before, cellular coincidence. for my viewers of all ages in long relationships thinking about going into long relationships scared of long relationships what would you say are the the keys to a long healthy happy relationship in addition to those commonalities that you mentioned before well i think if you marry for love love always comes back and if you're in the long haul there are days where you don't feel the love you hoped you would feel and days he feels the same thing but you don t leave the field of play. You stay in the relationship. Also, in marriage, as most married people know, and I've been married for 50 years, when something's annoying, it can be annoying repeatedly because there are things people can change and things people can't change. Dishes left in the sink, little things, it usually has to do with taking up somebody else's space. They did a study, incidentally, on the most unpopular kids in kindergarten and it's the kids who got too close to another kid they closed space and if you look at the crisis we are now in the middle east it has to do with the closing of space and people trying to breathe and get some some assurances that they have elbow room and can and continue to exist so back to this it's not just you stay on the field of play but then the next thing is the pie plate that holds your relationship is the commitment to marriage both people have to be committed to the sacrament of marriage and that when things go badly, you make that small pieces of the pie. You know, sometimes it has mold on it even, you have to go and scoop it out and try to throw in the pieces that work in the relationship. You make the big pieces of the pie and you look to that. And then other things as your relationship goes on. Margaret Mead said you either marry five different men the same way or one man five different ways. And I have to say that this Act III of my marriage to Andrew Harris Levy is as romantic as Act I. It's very romantic. We both know death. We've buried our parents. There's nothing more we can do for them as a good son or a good daughter. We have each other. We have our beloved children who are now in the prime of their lives. And we have five grandchildren. children. And we are able to re-experience our own early days on this earth through the wonder of our grandchildren. So it's a very happy time. Andrew was a very high-powered lawyer at huge law firms. He was of counsel to the largest law firm in the world. So he's a Very Detail-Oriented person. So talk about cellular convenience now. Whenever we plan a trip, I say, here, honey, you do all the details. Where do you want? What museum? What castle? I like castles and museum. And then I go and I memorize my lines with my assistant or prepare to see you. And Andrew does all this stuff and reminds me to call the spa at this particular hour because there's a seven hour difference between where we're going and where we are to make sure I get a massage. So I'm in great shape. Also, we've worked both. We've both had two careers all our lives, all our married lives. So we're financially comfortable. We're not going to own a plane. but if we needed to go on a plane, we could go with the drop of a hat. We have enough money for freedom, and that's all I need. I don't need diamonds or pearls. I just need to be free, which brings me to being an American and my love for my country. And my husband's a Washington, D.C. boy, so he was brought up with Arnold Levy, my beloved father-in-law, having black leaders and white leaders in their living room and Arabs and Israelis in their moving room. That is how Andy knew his home. He knew his Home as a place of peace. We had a father-in-law who would ask the tollbooth man how he was doing and try to have a conversation. He was extremely kind and a person who was an interconnector of human beings. And that is my hope. A good marriage is a metaphor for world peace, that you stay in it despite the conflict and you try to talk it through. And the big pillars need to be in place. no physical abuse no verbal abuse which is a tough one you know no verbal abuse particularly with with a well-educated or verbal people no addictions no betrayal i mean those things those things need to be in place you know what they say love is strong and hate is strong trust is fragile don't break people's trust and all these things i say to you today it my mind goes to relationship and it also goes to the global situation which was which also hinges on relationships yeah it hinges on relationships and on the good faith of good men and women my final question for you tova looking back at your your glittering career are there any whether it's on broadway or television film are there many actors actresses who you wished you had worked with who you didn't get the chance to oh for sure and who would they be dame irene worth i lost my first tony to her i I was in Yentl, and she was in Sweet Bird of Youth, and she was a genius. Also, Sidney, my father, told me, I never begrudge talent. Never. There's always room at the top. The cream rises at the bottom. Don't ever begrudge anybody their greatness. You know, Dustin and Bobby De Niro, these are not only men who kept their name, but these are transformational actors, great transformational characters. Give me a person with whom I have a good experience, and I'm theirs for life, you know, if they're kind. You know? I met everybody. I guess I wish I'd worked more with Meryl. I only did a Holocaust miniseries with her. And we were going to be in one series together, but not in the same episode. But I've gotten to work with Patti LuPone and with many of the Broadway greats. And then I played opposite Tony Hopkins in Armageddon Time, opposite Dustin Hoffman in Tuner. I've really had great, great privilege. and I have Adam Brody as my son and Kristen Bell as a potential daughter-in-law. I don't know if that'll ever happen. TBD, we'll see on season three. TBD. But I invite everybody to continue to watch us on Nobody Wants This. It's a story that will, stories that will make you laugh and make you think. Tova Felchuk, thank you so much for joining us on Unscripted. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you Thanks for watching!