Cheryl Hines: Stories From “Curb Your Enthusiasm” – Tucker Carlson Show (Transcript)

Well, actually, so one of my best friends, Paul Beckett, we went to high school together and he moved out there and he was a professional background actor.

TUCKER CARLSON: What’s a background actor?

CHERYL HINES: Like an extra.

TUCKER CARLSON: Is that what they call them? Background actor?

CHERYL HINES: Yes. Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: What is that life like?

Life as a Background Actor

CHERYL HINES: He loved it because it was day to day. You get a project, you don’t have to prepare much. You just show up.

TUCKER CARLSON: No lines to memorize.

CHERYL HINES: No lines to memorize. You know what the hardest thing about doing background work is? Have you ever done background work?

TUCKER CARLSON: No. I’ve been in the background in a lot of events, but I’ve never been paid for it.

CHERYL HINES: It’s harder than it seems because if they’re shooting a party scene and you’re background, you have to stand behind the main actors and act like you’re talking, but you can never say anything. So it’s a lot of…

TUCKER CARLSON: Or you can’t actually speak out loud?

CHERYL HINES: No, you can’t speak out loud, but you just act like you’re talking and you make eye contact with the person that you’re talking to. And then you take turns mouthing words, but try not to look crazy doing it.

TUCKER CARLSON: That sounds really hard, actually.

CHERYL HINES: It’s hard. I found it to be hard.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, you did it?

CHERYL HINES: Oh, yeah. Because you have to do it as an actor too. Because sometimes you’re shooting something in somebody else’s coverage and so they ask you not to actually say words out loud while they’re doing their dialogue. Even clapping. Usually when you see people clapping…

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: They’re not actually making noise.

TUCKER CARLSON: Seriously?

CHERYL HINES: They put that in later. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do they have hand muffs to keep it from…

CHERYL HINES: No, you’re just a professional. And you know not to.

TUCKER CARLSON: Not to touch.

CHERYL HINES: Not to touch.

Breaking Into the Industry

TUCKER CARLSON: So how did you go—so you show up not knowing anybody except one extra who went to your high school and then you wind up succeeding. How hard is that?

CHERYL HINES: It was hard. Yeah, it was hard. I got a bartending job, which actually was also hard.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, it’s a hard job.

CHERYL HINES: It’s a hard job. And in LA it was hard to get a job as a bartender or as a waitress because everybody’s doing that, because everybody is trying to get a job as an actor or writer. So even to get those jobs are hard in LA. But I managed to get a job in this hotel in downtown LA. It was the Intercontinental. I think they’ve changed it since then, but so that was good.

I did that and then it just took a year for me to work in that hotel, in that bar, to just sort of get used to LA. And at that time you would send out your headshot and resume to all of the agents in town and hope that somebody would be interested and just from looking at your picture, be interested in meeting with you.

And I didn’t do it. I wasn’t ready for the rejection because I thought, what if I send out a picture and resume to every agent in this town and none of them want me? I wasn’t ready. I didn’t have a plan. What would be the plan? So until I was ready with that form of rejection, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

TUCKER CARLSON: How did you get—how do you prepare for that kind of rejection?

Overcoming Fear of Rejection

CHERYL HINES: A lot of self pep talks where I would just say, “Okay, what’s going to happen? This is probably going to happen. Probably not one person is going to respond and who are you going to be? Is it going to change you if nobody responds?”

And for the first year of my life there I thought, yeah, it’ll change me, it’ll break me. This is the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do. But after I was there for a while I realized, okay, my self worth doesn’t depend on if somebody looks at my picture and decides they want to represent me or not.

I finally got to that place where I realized, okay, life is going to go on. I’m going to be the same person. I’m still going to be an actress. I’ll just have to do it a different way.

TUCKER CARLSON: And this was before you’d sent a single headshot to a single agent. That’s pretty self aware.

CHERYL HINES: Well, I guess I just didn’t want to—I didn’t want to, even though it was the only thing I wanted to do. It’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted to accomplish. And I thought, well, is my life going to be over at 25 if I can’t—am I going to let them decide if I’m successful or not, these agents? So yeah, I had to get to that place.

TUCKER CARLSON: So then how did you get in?

CHERYL HINES: Well, then I sent them all out and I did get a response. And let’s just say it wasn’t one of the big agencies.

TUCKER CARLSON: But was it a legitimate agency?

CHERYL HINES: I’ll say yes. There are so many agencies in Los Angeles and really there are a handful that are—I mean there are a lot that are legitimate, but there are really only a handful that are powerful.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

CHERYL HINES: It wasn’t one of the powerful ones. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t getting any auditions. They never sent me out on one audition. But remember the Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes, very well. And Jeff Gillooly.

The Nancy Kerrigan Audition

CHERYL HINES: Yes, and Jeff Gillooly. And so there was—you could, you used to be able to see the breakdowns for what they were casting. They would come out on something. So I would read the breakdowns to see what people were casting for. And at the time people were telling me I looked like Nancy Kerrigan. Yeah.

So I thought, okay, well maybe I should—there was a TV movie for this, for Tonya Harding, Nancy Kerrigan. So I thought I should at least go in. And so I knew my agent was not submitting me or if they did, nobody’s opening that. Or I thought they probably weren’t.

So I put my headshot and resume in. I put a Post-it on my picture that said “You should see her for Nancy,” exclamation point. I didn’t sign it because I didn’t want anyone to think that I was doing anything underhanded. And then for the return address, I put my agent’s address and I got called in.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wait, you pitched yourself on behalf of your agent?

CHERYL HINES: That’s correct.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did your agent get a cut of the fee?

CHERYL HINES: Well, I didn’t book it, but my agent called and was like, “Guess what? I’ve got an audition for you.” I was like, “Uh huh. For Nancy Kerrigan. Mm, actually.”

But I did have a really good audition and I may have been called back because there was a lot of talk about ice skating. Did I know how to ice skate?

TUCKER CARLSON: And growing up in Tallahassee, probably a…

CHERYL HINES: Pretty good ice skater.

TUCKER CARLSON: You didn’t play hockey.

CHERYL HINES: Great ice skater. And I said, “Of course I know how to ice skate.” And they were like, “Okay.” I think I got called back because when I got called back, I do remember there were four girls that looked a lot like Tonya Harding and four girls that looked a lot like Nancy Kerrigan. And I was just sitting in this room just looking around like, “Wow, this is weird.”

TUCKER CARLSON: I think you’d rather be on the Nancy Kerrigan side, I guess.

First Acting Role

TUCKER CARLSON: So what was the first actual part that you got?

CHERYL HINES: Well, that’s when I was living in Orlando. It was for Swamp Thing, the TV show inspired by the movie. Swamp Thing.

TUCKER CARLSON: I missed the whole Swamp Thing genre.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, it’s too bad.

TUCKER CARLSON: Was it a straight to video enterprise or what was it?

CHERYL HINES: What? Swamp Thing?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, the movie. Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: No, it was a hit movie, actually. Yes. Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wow. I’m embarrassed.

CHERYL HINES: You should be.

TUCKER CARLSON: Sorry. I was in boarding school, I think.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: No movies.

Early Acting Roles and Moving to LA

CHERYL HINES: You guys weren’t allowed to watch that. And then the TV show, I was an evil scientist. In the show, I am holding a gun. I’m about to shoot another scientist and I hear a beeping sound. Because earlier in the episode, I had pulled the plug on my stepfather’s life support machine. And now I’m hearing a beeping sound and it’s driving me crazy.

And then I drop the gun, I clutch my heart, and I die. And I said to the director, I said, before we shot it, I said, just so I’m clear, what exactly am I dying of? I mean, I know we’re talking about Telltale Heart, where the beeping is driving you crazy, and can anybody else hear it? All of that. I said, but what is the thing that’s actually killing me?

And he said, “Cheryl, we don’t have time for this. You just need to drop the gun.” And then the gun handler, who was somebody on set that’s there for gun safety and shows you how to handle the gun, he was like, “Please don’t drop the gun.” He said, “If you could just, can you lay it on the couch on your way down to the floor?” I was like, oh, okay.

So I had to. He said, the director was like, “Just clutch your heart.” I said, “So a heart attack?” And he’s like, “That’s fine. Yeah, let’s say that’s fine. We got to go.” So that was my big death scene. Exciting. And that was my big first role. That’s why I moved to LA.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because you were hooked.

CHERYL HINES: Well, because this was my springboard to stardom.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, I’m not mocking.

CHERYL HINES: Well, because I just got this role and there was nothing else really shooting in Orlando.

TUCKER CARLSON: Probably not.

CHERYL HINES: So I thought, okay, this is a good time to go to LA. Swamp Thing is going to come out, the agents in LA are going to see it, and my phone will ring off the hook. And then I called my sister because she was still in Orlando when it came out. And I said, “So did you watch it? How was it?” Because, you know, we were three hours later, earlier, later.

And she said, “You should start drinking now.” So we did. Then we had a Swamp Thing watch party and it was fun. I mean, this was not like nobody got Golden Globes from Swamp Thing.

TUCKER CARLSON: No one.

CHERYL HINES: No, no, no. And my phone didn’t ring after.

TUCKER CARLSON: So how long did it take you from the day you got to LA till you thought, I’m successful now?

CHERYL HINES: 10 years.

TUCKER CARLSON: 10 years?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Predators in Hollywood

TUCKER CARLSON: How predatory is LA? It feels that way to me.

CHERYL HINES: In what way?

TUCKER CARLSON: It feels like there’s a lot of ambitious people and then there are a lot of people with power taking advantage of those ambitious people. That’s the way it feels.

CHERYL HINES: There is definitely that. There is definitely that. I had one experience that I actually talk about in my book Unscripted, where there was a director that approached me and said, “Will you meet me in my hotel room? I want to talk to you about a film.” And at that point, I had a different agent. I had a better agent, and I was on Curb at the time. And I said, well, I talked to…

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re on Curb Your Enthusiasm when he called you, you know what?

CHERYL HINES: I think we had shot it, but it hadn’t aired.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay.

CHERYL HINES: Oh, because I met him at a drugstore in LA. Yeah. I mean, this person has since been well exposed, if you will. And he came up to me and said, oh, you know, I mean, I guess I could tell you the name.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, go ahead.

CHERYL HINES: Okay. It’s James Toback.

TUCKER CARLSON: James Toback.

CHERYL HINES: So he wrote, did he write Bugsy? He wrote the film Bugsy. He’s a successful director, writer. And I thought, well, this is a legitimate person. And my agent said, “I think you should meet him.” And I said, “Even if it’s in his hotel room, it’s a little weird. Friday night.”

TUCKER CARLSON: How about the Polo Lounge?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. And he said, “You know, people do this all the time.” This was a while ago. This was a while ago.

TUCKER CARLSON: I do this all the time.

CHERYL HINES: This was probably when I was, this was probably how long ago? 20 years ago? No, no, more than that. 25 years ago, at least. And I felt strange going into a man’s hotel room on a Friday night. So I asked my friends to come with me. I said, “Will you guys wait in the Polo Lounge?”

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, it was in the Beverly Hills Hotel?

CHERYL HINES: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, that’s just perfect.

CHERYL HINES: Am I allowed to say that? And then I gave him the room number. I said, “If you don’t hear from me in whatever it was, 30 minutes, come knock on this room, because I don’t know if I’m going to have phone reception. I don’t know what’s going to happen. Probably it’s probably all going to be fine. But if you don’t hear from me, just come to the room.”

And so when I got to his room, I said, “Just so you know, my friends are waiting for me downstairs.” And, you know, he said, “Okay,” or whatever. I did not get the vibe that it was a weird situation. And then he starts talking, and then he’s telling me, “You really have to be willing to step out of your comfort zone as an actor. You have to,” you know. And he’s asking me, “Do you feel like you can do that?”

I said, “Well, of course I can. I’m an actress. I’m a trained actress. This is what we do all the time.” And so then he starts asking me strange questions like, “Do I have a lot of body hair?”

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you have a lot of body hair?

CHERYL HINES: Mm.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wow.

CHERYL HINES: And I…

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s not usually part of the woo.

CHERYL HINES: It’s really not. And I thought, that’s funny for an…

TUCKER CARLSON: Opening line that doesn’t seem effective to me. Does that, I’m not a woman, though. Does that work?

CHERYL HINES: Oh, yeah. I fell madly in love that night. We had tons of kids and we’re happy. And, you know, I was like, okay, well, I can’t say that I do. I’m looking at the hair on my arms, I’m like, you can’t really see it. I don’t know. I don’t know where this is going, you know?

And then he says, “You want to take off your shoes and get comfortable?” I said, “Oh, I’m comfortable.” And he said, “You don’t want to take off your shoes?” And I said, “I don’t. I’m totally comfortable. Don’t worry about me.” And I was wearing boots. And he said, he said, “Why don’t you take off one boot?”

TUCKER CARLSON: Come on. And at this point, I’m like, men are so creepy.

CHERYL HINES: I’m like, one boot? And I’m thinking to myself, why one boot? Like, where is this going? Why would it be one boot? But for whatever reason, I was sort of intrigued, like, why one boot? I took off one boot. I left my sock on.

And then he starts talking again. And then my friends knock on the door, and I said, “Oh, that must be my friends.” And he looked at me like, what are you talking about? And I went and I opened the door and they were all, it was like an episode of Friends where all their heads are in the doorway like “Cheryl.”

And one of my friends looked at my feet and he said, “Where’s your boot?” I said, “Oh, it’s over by the couch.” And he goes, “Get your boot, we’re going.” And they were all like, “Yeah, get your boot, you’re out of here.” And I said, “Yeah, it is weird, isn’t it?” And he said, “Yeah, it’s weird.”

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s so weird.

CHERYL HINES: And then I left.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you ever talk to him again?

CHERYL HINES: No. But you know, he was sued by a lot of women because he would, this is what he’d do. He would, because he is a successful person, director, writer, he would go up to women in New York and LA and say, “I’m James Toback, you must know me, why don’t you come over to my place, I want to work on something with you or show you a script or whatever.” And oh, and his thing was apparently that he liked feet.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, that is a thing.

CHERYL HINES: And he would manipulate these women, overpower them and do sexually provocative things.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I don’t see feet as sexually provocative. Maybe I’m the weirdo.

CHERYL HINES: No, same. And in the moment, I don’t know. It never occurred to me that this would, it never occurred to me that this is a weird guy who’s trying to, you know, do something sexual. I mean, I guess it was a, it’s sort of a slow burn, you know, because a lot of stuff you do as an actor is weird.

There are a lot of things that are not normal, that are odd, that are out of your comfort zone. You know, you’re showing up on a set and kissing a person that you just met. And that’s part of your job, if that’s your role. That’s the theme. So there are things that happen that are just strange and also normal at the same time. So, you know, taking one boot off, I just didn’t think that that was…

TUCKER CARLSON: That the script called for that.

CHERYL HINES: No, I didn’t. I had no idea if the script would go for that, but I didn’t. I can understand how a woman that’s in a spot like that, it’s a very vulnerable place for them to be. And if I didn’t have my friends on the other side of the door, I don’t know what would, I don’t know what would have happened. I don’t know. But anyway, what was your question? It was something about taking advantage.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Are there predators in Hollywood? And I think…

CHERYL HINES: And that’s my predator story.

Landing the Role on Curb Your Enthusiasm

TUCKER CARLSON: So how did you wind up on Curb Your Enthusiasm?

CHERYL HINES: Well, I started studying at the Groundlings Theater in LA, which is an improv and sketch comedy theater. And I was studying improv and performing. And at that point I had gotten a better agent and I started to go out on auditions. I was auditioning for different pilots, different TV shows.

And I got called in to audition for a one hour special. They were just calling it the Larry David Unscripted or Untitled Special. And so I went in and, well, I was scheduled to audition and then they called me and they said, “We’re running behind because there’s no script, it’s all improvised and it’s taking longer than we thought. So I don’t know when you’re going to be able to go in.”

And then that night I was performing in a sketch comedy show and I was performing a sketch that I had written and the producer, director of the show was in the audience and really liked the sketch and thought that my sense of humor and Larry’s would match up.

TUCKER CARLSON: You didn’t know him?

CHERYL HINES: I never met him.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you know who he was?

CHERYL HINES: You know, I knew that he co-created Seinfeld with Jerry Seinfeld. That’s all I knew.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, he was not a public figure.

CHERYL HINES: I didn’t know what he looked like. I didn’t know anything about him. And so I wasn’t… It was probably good that I didn’t because I wasn’t intimidated because I didn’t know who he was. I knew he was a lot older than me and I knew I was going in to audition for his wife.

And I felt like I don’t know if I’m right for this part, but I’ll go in and try to have a great audition and see what happens. Maybe there’s a different part, you know.

And then when I walked in, I mean, the sketch that sort of opened the door for me was a bit about a woman in her workplace. And this guy comes in to do a safety, like go over safety procedures in an earthquake. And everybody in the office seemed to know what to do in case of an earthquake. And they were answering all the questions right. “Oh, do you light a match after an earthquake?” And somebody said, “No, because there could be a gas leak.”

And I’m thinking, “Whoa, how did they even know that?” And “Should you walk around without shoes on?” “No, because there could be broken glass.” And then they said, “What do you do if your water supply runs out?” And I said, “Well, if push comes to shove, you can drink your own urine.”

And my co-workers were like, “That’s gross.” I said, “Well, no, I mean, I don’t…” And they said, “That’s really gross.” And so the rest of the sketch was they’re trying to move on. You know, “Okay, do you call your friends?” And I go, “Just to be clear, I don’t drink my own urine. I never… I’m not going to come home and drink my own urine.”

And they’re like, “We get it. We’ve got to finish this seminar.” And I won’t let it go, you know. And I said, “Look, I’m going to say right now, I’m not going to drink my own urine. Even if there’s an apocalypse and the only way to survive is to drink your urine, I’m not drinking my urine. I want you guys to know right now, I’m not drinking my urine.”

So that was the sketch that Bob Weide saw and he brought me in the next day. And then when I walked in for the audition, he said, “Oh, the urine girl is here.”

TUCKER CARLSON: So that’s the sketch that you wrote?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, that’s the sketch that I wrote.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, that does sound like something from Curb Your Enthusiasm.

CHERYL HINES: So Bob thought that Larry would appreciate that sort of sense of humor.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Well, that turns out to be a perfect match.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

Twenty-Four Years on Curb

TUCKER CARLSON: How long were you on that show?

CHERYL HINES: The show was on for 24 years.

TUCKER CARLSON: 24 years.

CHERYL HINES: It took 24 years, yes. And there were 12 seasons. So there were some seasons when there was like a four year break between some seasons. It wasn’t consecutive like most TV shows.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why?

CHERYL HINES: Because it was Larry David. And Larry wanted to only do shows when he felt inspired. Smart. Yeah. So he felt like after, even after the first season, I thought that was the end of the show because he said that was the end of the show. And then I get a call and say, “Oh, we’re going to do another season.” I was like, “That’s amazing.”

So every season it was like that. And then one time I got a call from him and he said, “I’ve got some bad news.” I said, “Okay.” And he said, “We’re going to do another season, but you’re not going to be in it.” I said, “Okay. I mean, that’s okay.”

And then they did a season in New York that I wasn’t in. And in the show, Larry and I had gotten divorced. And then the season after that, he brought me back into the show as his ex-wife. But it was over 24 years that all this took place.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s wild. So you got to know him well, of course. What’s he like?

CHERYL HINES: Well, of course he’s very, very smart, very funny. He’s very caring. No, it doesn’t seem like it, but he’s very caring about people close to him. And he’s neurotic.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: So basically I’m not breaking news. So basically it’s real. A lot of it’s real.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: 24 years is a long time to spend with the same people.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you get along with all of them?

CHERYL HINES: I did.

TUCKER CARLSON: Really?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. I loved all of them. I mean, I still do. And our crew, we had a few crew members that were with us from the beginning, you know, and it was very sweet, too, because there was so much time that was passing and we all had kids and then we watched our kids grow up. And then some cast members would have their kids as interns on the show. So it was sweet. You know, they were just a real part of my life.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, well, it sounds like that was a lot of your adult life.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, it was. Yeah.

Meeting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

TUCKER CARLSON: And you met your husband through the show or through Larry?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, through Larry. I mean, I met Bobby, Robert Kennedy Jr., through… I mean, Larry just introduced us. You know, Larry and I went to a Waterkeeper event and he just introduced me to Bobby. Not in any way like “You guys should have anything to do with each other.” It was just like, “This is Cheryl, this is Bobby.” So that was the first time I met him. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: What’d you think?

CHERYL HINES: I thought it was nice. He was a great speaker. Bobby was a great speaker. I saw him speak at the event. And also, I just remember, “Oh, that’s a pleated khakis guy.”

TUCKER CARLSON: A pleated khakis guy?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. You know, a guy that wears pleated khakis?

TUCKER CARLSON: Is that a plus or a minus?

CHERYL HINES: Well, is it a plus or a minus? I think growing up in Tallahassee, I had a lot of guy friends that wore pleated khakis. And it was kind of… It reminds me of like a football coach type. To me, at the time, it felt like not a creative type person that I was used to. I don’t know if that makes sense.

TUCKER CARLSON: The pleated khakis are the more non-creative.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Interesting. I don’t think pleated khakis exist anymore.

CHERYL HINES: I’m glad.

TUCKER CARLSON: I am, too. That was a sad phase in this country’s history. I agree.

CHERYL HINES: I mean, listen, they weren’t good for guys or girls.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. I agree. I never fell for it. I’m not bragging.

CHERYL HINES: Okay.

TUCKER CARLSON: I never… I forgot that even happened.

CHERYL HINES: It was burned into my brain.

TUCKER CARLSON: It was. So was part of the appeal, “I gotta fix this”?

CHERYL HINES: No, I mean, that part of the thing was just like, “Oh, he’s a pleated khakis guy, you know? Okay, that’s nice.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: So, but yes, then years later, when we got together, I was…

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, it was years.

CHERYL HINES: Oh, yeah. Because when I met him, he was married. I was married to different people. So it was not at all like… There was no spark or interest or anything like that. It was just a casual acquaintance.

TUCKER CARLSON: And…

CHERYL HINES: And then I stayed involved with Waterkeeper, and I would see Bobby once a year, I think, at a Waterkeeper event. And he was always pleasant, always nice, but I really never even spoke to him that much because it was always a big event.

And then I got divorced. He got divorced. We were going through divorce, and I was going to see him and I thought, “Oh, this is interesting.” Like six years later or however long. “It’ll be interesting to see him, because it’s hard. It’s hard going through a divorce, and it’s hard even talking to somebody about it, because unless you’re going through it, nobody wants to talk about it.”

TUCKER CARLSON: No, that’s right.

CHERYL HINES: And even if you’re going through it, you might not want to talk about it. But anyway, when I saw him, I said, “How are you doing?” And he said, “Good.” I said, “How are you really doing?” And he said, “Good. Well, we should talk.” “Okay.”

And then we started talking and I just was really… The first time I talked to him as a person, he was very dynamic. You know, he’s a dynamic person, and I just saw him in a different way for the first time, and I was really taken with him.

TUCKER CARLSON: What did your friends think?

Meeting Bobby Kennedy

CHERYL HINES: They, you know, my friends, they thought it was fun. But, you know, at the time, Bobby was living in New York, I was living in LA. Bobby was an environmental attorney, and everybody loved him, I remember, except for the big corporations that he was suing. So, you know, it was just a kind of a fun situation and they wanted to hear the highlights, you know, my friends.

But it wasn’t, it didn’t seem like it was going to be anything permanent. So I don’t know. But it was just, wasn’t, didn’t seem like a big thing at first.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. A lot of things start that way.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: So then you marry him, you’re famous, he’s famous. It’s probably easier to marry someone who understands what that is, I would think.

CHERYL HINES: Seems like it. I understand why people, I mean, it has its pluses and minuses. Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course.

CHERYL HINES: Because probably two people that are known or, you know, well known or whatever that looks like, they’re only known in certain circles. So I don’t know, there probably two famous people that feel somebody feels left out while the other person’s shining or whatever that looks like. So there might be that.

I know that should be true with friends that are actors. You know, two actors together and sometimes, or a director and an actor and their career is doing great, and the other one is, you know, in a different pocket in their career. That can be tough.

But it was good for me and Bobby because we were in different worlds completely. And I remember early on when we were going through the airport together and somebody stopped him and said, you know, “What you’re doing is amazing. What you’re doing is so important for the environment, for our country, for people, for people’s health. Thank you so much.” Almost in tears.

And I said, “Wow, that was really nice.” And then we keep going through, and then this guy said, “Oh, my gosh, that diarrhea scene that you did in the car wash, that killed me.” And I was like, “Thank you.” And I look at Bobby like, ha, ha.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re not the only one.

CHERYL HINES: So we had a, it was fun getting together with him in that way.

TUCKER CARLSON: And then he moved out to LA.

CHERYL HINES: Well, then he asked me to marry him and I said, “I don’t really want to get married if we’re going to live in different circles.”

TUCKER CARLSON: States fair.

CHERYL HINES: Right. And he said, “Okay, I’ll come out there.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Wow.

CHERYL HINES: I mean, I’m making it sound easy. It wasn’t an easy decision, but, yeah, that’s what happened.

COVID and Controversy

TUCKER CARLSON: And just from the outside looking in, things go great. And then COVID happens and Bobby goes from being controversial to being really controversial.

CHERYL HINES: Yes, you could say that. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Fair.

CHERYL HINES: That’s very fair to say.

TUCKER CARLSON: And more love, too. Not just more hated, but more prominent.

CHERYL HINES: Also more prominent. And started really speaking to a lot of people. And it was hard, too, being in LA, or challenging, perhaps, because I would say the majority of the people in LA that I was encountering did not agree with him and they could not imagine anybody agreeing with him. But the reality was there were millions of people across the country that did. Were agreeing with him.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah.

CHERYL HINES: But it was hard to see that in LA, but that’s what was happening.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did anyone say anything to you about it, at work?

CHERYL HINES: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: What did they say? I’m so impressed by how brave your husband is.

CHERYL HINES: Actually, I did get some of those.

TUCKER CARLSON: I bet you did.

CHERYL HINES: I did get some of those, but I also got, “What is he doing? You’ve got to stop him.”

TUCKER CARLSON: You’ve got to stop him.

CHERYL HINES: I got a lot of that.

TUCKER CARLSON: Really?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wow.

CHERYL HINES: Like, it’s, you know, the whole, I can’t believe I’m the first one saying the whole vaccine issue. People were so passionate about it one way or the other. And the people, and there were a lot of people that felt like, “If we don’t all take this vaccine, we’re all going to die, and if you don’t take it, you’re going to kill us.” So people really felt like that and would tell me that, actually.

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, I didn’t have very strong feelings about vaccines one way or the other. My whole life. I never really thought about it. I didn’t realize that it was a religion to a lot of people and political. Well, but that, you know, it’s religion. Because that doesn’t make any sense. If the vaccine is effective and you take it, then you’re good to go.

CHERYL HINES: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why does it matter if I take it?

CHERYL HINES: Somebody else does it.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s it. Did anyone, I heard smart people make that case. People I thought were smart, but doesn’t make any sense just on the face of it.

CHERYL HINES: No, it doesn’t make any sense. And that, and that wasn’t enough for people.

TUCKER CARLSON: It wasn’t?

CHERYL HINES: No. It wasn’t enough for someone to be able to take the vaccine and feel like, “Woo, I’m okay now. I don’t care what you do.” It wasn’t enough.

TUCKER CARLSON: So the “my body, my choice” was not a real thing, it turned out.

CHERYL HINES: No, no. It’s like, and I wouldn’t, I need to get involved with your body.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes. Your body, my choice.

CHERYL HINES: Your body by choice. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. And feminism is also obviously fake because why would you hold a woman responsible for her husband’s views? If you were a feminist, you’d be like, well, you know, you’re a human being, with autonomy and stuff, and you’re responsible for your views, but your husband is a different person, not the same as you, and he’s got his views, so they’re not your fault. Right.

CHERYL HINES: That one would think. But that’s also not the case.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: Interesting.

TUCKER CARLSON: How did, so as, but this went on and on and on. It wasn’t like a flu season. It was like years. And it got more intense.

CHERYL HINES: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: What was that like for you?

The Stress of Division

CHERYL HINES: It was stressful. It was stressful and it was loud. You know, it felt like the conversation was loud. And it was, you know what was really hard, I thought was, like I said, both sides. I felt like both sides were pretty loud.

And so even if you would find out that maybe somebody had passed away, it seemed like both sides wanted to know, “Was that person vaccinated? Was that the reason they weren’t, or is that the reason?” And it made me sad. Because I had several friends that passed away during that time.

And it felt like we were talking about the wrong things at the moment. You think, “Wow, it’s not, why are we talking about the person that just passed away and who they were and how they affected our lives?” You know, so I hated it. I hated it.

TUCKER CARLSON: How can I use other people’s deaths to score political points?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, I hated it.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Well, good.

CHERYL HINES: So that was hard.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s a measure of your decency that you hated.

CHERYL HINES: No, it is.

TUCKER CARLSON: It is. Someone dies, you should take a moment, mourn the person’s death. Right?

CHERYL HINES: That’s what it’s all about. Who was that person? How did they remain in your life?

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

CHERYL HINES: And what do they leave behind?

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

CHERYL HINES: But when it goes quickly from, you skip over that conversation. It was just hard.

TUCKER CARLSON: I think it was hard for people to accept that vaccinated people ever die because it’s magic and you live forever when you get a vaccine. And I think they were like, “Oh, there’s got to be some way to explain that. Like, how could a vaccinated person die?”

CHERYL HINES: Well, it felt like both, once again, it felt like both sides were, “Well, yes, they got the vaccine and then they got COVID, but they would have died if they did get the vaccine.” Or, you know, it’s sort of like you could fit different scenarios into your own narrative, which was also annoying.

And, you know, studies, so many talks of studies. “Well, I can show you a study that shows this. I can show you a study that shows that.” And it’s just about back and forth. And it’s like being in a courtroom and you’re watching both sides. You have an expert, and the expert will say, “100%, you know, if you pick up this glass, you will die.” And then the other experts say, “100%. That is not true. Here’s a study that shows something completely different.”

So it just felt like there was a lot of that going on. It still is a lot of that going on. Instead of, to me, what I have a hard time understanding is instead of always pointing the finger and saying, “You’re wrong. You better listen to me. You’re wrong.” Instead of that and two people saying, “Okay, let’s talk about this, because it is a problem.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Right?

CHERYL HINES: There’s a huge problem here. It’s a crisis. A lot of people are suffering. How can we figure it out? Like, show me what you’ve got. I’ll show you what I’ve got. Is there a cross section? Why aren’t these two sides working together? That’s what I don’t understand.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, it’s helpful to begin the conversation with, “Here’s how I’ve been wrong.” Everyone calms down.

CHERYL HINES: You know, does anybody start with that?

TUCKER CARLSON: It works.

CHERYL HINES: It does work.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Because it’s the ultimate display of good faith. “I’ve been wrong. And here’s how.” And then you de-escalate immediately. But when you begin with, you know, “Here are the eight things I don’t like about you.”

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: It doesn’t go very far. So at this time, your husband is at home writing “The Real Anthony Fauci,” an amazing book, bestseller, despite long odds. And what was that like? Did you talk to him about it as he was writing it?

Writing “The Real Anthony Fauci”

CHERYL HINES: There was a lot of Anthony Fauci talk in our house. For good reason, of course.

TUCKER CARLSON: Pro or con.

CHERYL HINES: And there was a, you know, he worked really hard on it, and he spent a lot of time citing sources in that book.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I noticed.

CHERYL HINES: So, you know, there were a lot of days that were just filled with citing sources by, you know, “This article, that study. This goes in, page two. This goes in.” So it was, it took up a lot of space in our lives.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. I mean, there are thousands of footnotes in that book, and it’s a very long book.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. So it was, you know, was it important? Yes. Was it joyful? No.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: Wasn’t.

TUCKER CARLSON: Like, no spouse of a writer is ever happy about books.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’ve had children cry to me when I’m going to write a book, another book, everyone cries. Yeah. It’s very unhappy. No, I know.

CHERYL HINES: It is hard to write a book, isn’t it?

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s awful, but it’s terrible for the people around you.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, I’m very aware of that. I’ve received that feedback. I hear you sitting alone in your…

CHERYL HINES: Office, try to do better.

TUCKER CARLSON: Smoking, feeling angry. No, no, I. Yeah, no, I know that. Well, so were you ever worried that, I mean, this is getting more and more and more controversial? You marry this man, and you’re in separate worlds, as you said. And that’s a wonderful thing. He’s a star in his world. You’re a star in your world. They don’t really collide. They don’t really intersect.

CHERYL HINES: No, they don’t.

The COVID Book and Its Impact

TUCKER CARLSON: And people in your world think Bobby Kennedy’s pretty cool because he’s a Kennedy, and they’re sort of Democratic party royalty and liberal in a wholesome way. Not a scary liberal, but a “do good” liberal. Everyone kind of likes that.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. Clean Water.

TUCKER CARLSON: And you’re on the coolest show in America. And of course, everyone loves that. And all of a sudden, everyone in LA is pissed about COVID. And there’s your husband, who’s in his office writing this book accusing Fauci of starting the pandemic.

CHERYL HINES: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: Were you worried that that was going to affect you, your life?

CHERYL HINES: Oh, I mean, was I worried? Yes, but it was more than worry. It was affecting my life. So it wasn’t even like, “But I was concerned.” I was concerned. I didn’t know if this was going to be something that we move through, that I moved through that. Whoa. That was a crazy time. And now things are back to normal.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did that happen?

CHERYL HINES: It did not.

TUCKER CARLSON: No.

CHERYL HINES: There is no normal.

TUCKER CARLSON: No.

CHERYL HINES: We broke normal a long time.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes. This is the beginning of a journey. As I said at the outset, you’re in a place I doubt you anticipated being.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, I did not expect that. So that was when I realized, oh, this is changing everything.

The Professional Fallout

TUCKER CARLSON: So I would. It was publicly reported that people in Los Angeles were like, “Maybe we shouldn’t give Cheryl Hines work because of her husband.” Do you think that’s real?

CHERYL HINES: I do think that’s real. I think that.

TUCKER CARLSON: I find that shocking. I do. Sorry.

CHERYL HINES: Well, I mean, some people are just so taken with politics, they’re so upset by politics that even to see me is upsetting to them.

TUCKER CARLSON: Can I suggest something, though, that this is why it matters. It’s not just about getting parts in TV shows or writing books about Fauci. It’s a genocidal mindset. It’s the mindset that says, “Well, we hurt the guilty, but we also hurt his family.” And that’s a genocidal mindset.

And it’s weirdly common in elite circles in the United States. What do you have to do with this? Nothing. You married the guy. By the way, you already successful when you married him. You already had your own thing.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And you’re already famous and you marry him. You’re not writing a book on Dr. Fauci, but let’s hurt her because she’s related to him. That’s where genocide comes from, that way of thinking. It is.

CHERYL HINES: It is strange. It’s very strange to me. And at the same time, on the opposite side, yes, there are people that I’m probably not going to work with again, and there are people that I will be working with that have reached out to me and that are in this business that are very successful. People that say, “Oh, I want to work with you.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, that’s a great way to look at it.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. So it’s, but it was hard because at the time, I mean, I’ve really loved all the people I’ve worked with.

TUCKER CARLSON: It sounds like you did.

CHERYL HINES: And I really have appreciated them. And I also know, we’re sort of generalizing. There are plenty of people that I have worked with that have reached out to me and will say, “I can’t wait to work with you again.” They’re not doing it publicly, but the other people aren’t doing it publicly either. Nobody, besides Bradley Whitford, nobody is going on.

The Bradley Whitford Incident

TUCKER CARLSON: What did Bradley Whitford say?

CHERYL HINES: Oh, gosh, you didn’t hear that dumb tweet.

TUCKER CARLSON: I try and stay away from all things Bradley Whitford related, but don’t tell me. I can’t wait for the new outrage. What is it?

CHERYL HINES: Oh, my gosh. I don’t know. It’s when Bobby, I guess it’s when Bobby backed President Trump. And I just woke up. I woke up and I had people texting me. And I was trying to stay off social media, too, because nothing good comes from it.

TUCKER CARLSON: You think?

CHERYL HINES: And I’m looking at my phone and I’m seeing texts from my friends saying, “What an ahole.” Not thinking, who? Oh, who’s the, today, sorry, somebody. And then somebody sent me something that he posted on X and it was something like, I bet my nephew Jackson would know it by heart.

But something like, “Hey, Cheryl Hines,” something like, insulted Donald Trump. And then, of course, insulted Bobby and said, “Oh, this is real good. Setting a great example for the kids,” talking about me and “a real profile in courage.” I was like, what? What?

First of all, what kids? What kids am I setting an example for? And if the example that I’m setting is that I’m supporting my husband, I’m glad that’s the example for the kids.

TUCKER CARLSON: Best example you could set.

CHERYL HINES: So that was strange. And then “profile in courage” just because that’s the name of the book that John F. Kennedy wrote. But no explanation other than just he just sort of called me out for.

TUCKER CARLSON: Not like, it’s your fault, being out.

CHERYL HINES: Outraged at my husband. I’m not even sure what he was hoping, that I would.

TUCKER CARLSON: Publicly denounce your husband.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, I guess. Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: I’m getting a divorce.

CHERYL HINES: You’re right, Bradley. It was so strange to me. I was just like, whoa, what? Yeah, like Bradley and, I know Bradley and he’s an acquaintance and if I saw him at a party, we’d hang out and laugh and talk, but so for him to just suddenly come after me in a tweet was just weird.

The Culture of Los Angeles

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. But kind of consistent with the culture of the city that you live in. Right. Well, there’s not a lot of, I mean, it’s so monochromatic. It’s like everybody has the same views on everything.

CHERYL HINES: You know what’s interesting? After the first, after the election with Trump and Hillary, I remember going to work and I remember we were, I was in, it was in the green room up somewhere, and people were talking about the election and everybody was saying, “I can’t believe Trump won. Couldn’t believe who, who voted for this person.”

And there was one actor that said, “Oh, I voted for him.” And everybody looked at him like, what? And I love this actor. I’m not going to say his name because.

TUCKER CARLSON: Is he still working?

CHERYL HINES: Yes, and he’s still working. And I said, “Oh, that’s so interesting.” And I said, “Why did, why did you?” And I wanted to hear, I wanted to talk to him because I felt like, oh, tell me why. Because what am I missing?

And everybody else just acted like he was a leper in the moment. Just like, what. And I remember thinking at the time, like, this is so strange.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Because that’s not an environment conducive to creativity.

CHERYL HINES: No.

TUCKER CARLSON: Creative people are open minded.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And willing to entertain all kinds of wild notions, some of which are wrong.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. And curious. Curious about other people, especially.

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly. Nicely put. They’re curious about other people. Exactly.

CHERYL HINES: So it’s odd to me.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, yeah. And maybe it has something to do with the declining creative output in Los Angeles.

CHERYL HINES: I just, I can’t speak to that. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.

TUCKER CARLSON: I know.

CHERYL HINES: Listen, the people in this country and the entertainment business are the best in the world. They’re the best in the world.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: And.

TUCKER CARLSON: But a lot of it’s being made outside of LA, right?

CHERYL HINES: I mean, yeah, that’s the unfortunate part. A lot of the industry has been driven out.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. I mean, I always defend Los Angeles. I lived there as a child. I think it’s the most American of all cities. I love it. I was just there. I’m probably the only person with my voting record that defends LA, but I always do. But I just notice that it’s, when I was a child, it did seem open minded.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Maybe too much. Probably famously too open minded. Like some things are not a good idea.

CHERYL HINES: Do whatever person you want to be.

TUCKER CARLSON: Clearly, clearly that’s not the road to happiness. On the other hand, it is the road to creativity.

CHERYL HINES: Right. Well, that’s why I find LA, I find it odd that on the one hand you have a lot of people saying, “Yeah, let people be people and love the person no matter who they are.” That was the feeling I always felt in LA.

TUCKER CARLSON: Unless you’re married to someone who writes a book I don’t like, in which case cut them off, let’s starve them to death.

CHERYL HINES: I was like, oh, I didn’t see the fine print. Okay. I know now, I know now. Weird.

A Non-Political Life

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, it sounds like you’re just, by the way you talked, that you were not super political.

CHERYL HINES: No, I wasn’t political at all. I was, the only thing I had ever posted was to vote. I didn’t say who I think you should vote for. I was just like.

TUCKER CARLSON: But personally, you weren’t yelling about politics at dinner most nights.

CHERYL HINES: No.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, I can, I can feel it.

CHERYL HINES: And by the way, I never knew what politics my friends or co-workers had.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: Because I would never be the person to bring up politics unless they were talking about it. I would chime in, but it just was not. I was not that person that was interested. I was interested in entertainment and writing and producing and directing and acting and to me, and so inspired by the people around me in LA. So inspired by them. So, yeah. Politics was just for what other people do.

The Presidential Run

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. You know, I think most people felt that way. So when your husband said, “Oh, by the way, just so you know, I may run for president,” what did you think of that?

CHERYL HINES: I was.

TUCKER CARLSON: Shocked. You were shocked? This is not something you thought of before. No.

CHERYL HINES: No. Yeah. I said president of what? I was hoping it was like a board or company.

TUCKER CARLSON: Homeowners association.

CHERYL HINES: The homeowners association. I can support that. I was shocked. And I was like, “Well, I need a minute to think about this. I mean, do I have to give you an answer right now? Is this something that I have to answer now?”

And he said, “No, I just, I need to know how you feel about it because I can’t do it. I won’t do it unless you’re, it’s okay with you and you’re supportive of it.” And I said, “I have to really think about it,” because I knew. I knew that it would be life changing. And it’s hard.

TUCKER CARLSON: When did you know how much?

CHERYL HINES: No, no. But I knew it would be big. I knew it would be. And I think what’s really hard is I’ve always been very independent in my life. Right. Moved to LA, I lived on my own. I sort of made my own path to do this and that, other things.

And however I got there was not the normal way. I was doing it my own way. So I was used to taking risks for myself and knowing, “Well, this might not work out. This might work out, might not, but that’s okay, I’m taking the risk.”

But it’s sort of a harder, of course, situation. And this is with everybody, right? Anybody who’s in a relationship, anybody who has kids, anybody who loves somebody else, when they want to take a risk and they’re doing it because they want to accomplish something or do something. It’s harder when they’re the ones making the decision, but you know that it’s going to really change your life too.

The Show’s Final Season During the Campaign

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, yeah, harder. So what did—was the show still going? I can’t remember when.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, the show was still going.

TUCKER CARLSON: What did they say when you show up at work and you’re like, hey, guys.

CHERYL HINES: Didn’t love it.

TUCKER CARLSON: I bet.

CHERYL HINES: You know, they were always very loving to me and even to Bobby as a person. So I never felt hate coming at me or towards Bobby. But definitely there was strong opinions about should he be running for president against Joe Biden. Well, that’s how it all started, right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Because he’s the fourth Kennedy to run for president and the only one not to get the support of Hollywood.

CHERYL HINES: Interesting. Yeah, it was an interesting time. And I did have maybe one discussion with someone on the set where that person said, well, Bobby has to drop out. He cannot be running against Joe Biden on the set.

TUCKER CARLSON: Somebody’s up this team.

CHERYL HINES: Well, you know, it was—

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, but at work.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, at work. And I said, well, I said, you know, I don’t know that Biden is a strong candidate.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, you are, Ms. Understatement, aren’t you? I know that Joe Biden’s a strong candidate.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, because that’s what they asked me.

TUCKER CARLSON: He’s asleep in his peas at this point. A strong candidate.

CHERYL HINES: They said, why is Bobby running? And I said, because perhaps Joe Biden’s not a strong candidate. And that was probably as heated as it got, but it was clear that a lot of people in town did not want Bobby running against Joe Biden. A lot of people in the country, a lot of Democrats. Democrats were not supportive of Bobby.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, some were, but—

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, some were somewhere.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, definitely on the margins. But the party itself was adamantly opposed.

CHERYL HINES: Yes.

TUCKER CARLSON: Wow. So how long did you do the show during the campaign?

CHERYL HINES: Oh, we just had our last season. So it was—so I was probably—Bobby was probably running for maybe two months, like maybe a two month overlap or something.

TUCKER CARLSON: What’d you think of that experience?

The Emotional Toll of Politics at Work

CHERYL HINES: I don’t want to get emotional. I thought it was—

TUCKER CARLSON: Sorry. That stuff. It was pretty heavy.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. I mean, it was hard because it made me sad. Yeah. Because I, you know, I had been working on this show for a long time and it was always pure joy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: And I mean, even when the vaccines of it all were introduced, there started to be an element that made its way into conversations at work that up until that moment had, like I said, only been pure joy. So, and, you know, not to say that people through the years didn’t have health issues, didn’t have relatives who passed away. And so, you know, we were there for each other, so—

TUCKER CARLSON: But it started to divide your friendships.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. And it’s—

TUCKER CARLSON: Is that because you showed up and said, you have to vote for Bobby for president or else I’m not going to be your friend, or was it because people were cruel to you because of your husband?

CHERYL HINES: Well, I, you know, I don’t know if I’d use the word cruel, but—yeah, I never told anybody they needed to vote for Bobby.

TUCKER CARLSON: Somehow I didn’t think you did.

CHERYL HINES: So, yeah, so that part of it made me sad that that was how the show was ending for me, you know, and it was just personal for me. It was for everybody else. It was fine and it was normal. It was usual. They were ending the series and, you know, going on late night talk shows and talking about the show, and they could talk about the show, they could talk about Curb without talking about politics, without anybody asking them questions about their spouses.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: But that was not the world for me. And so that was—

TUCKER CARLSON: You couldn’t go anywhere without having to answer questions about your husband.

CHERYL HINES: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yep.

CHERYL HINES: It’s still a conversation.

Guilt by Association

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. I’m for conversation. I’m not for punishing the innocent because that, again, is the genocidal mindset that I object to completely. And I just can’t imagine. I’m shocked to learn how many people have that mindset and think it’s okay to torment people because of their relatives.

Thank God I’m not held accountable for my relatives. I haven’t been for most of my life. You know what I mean? All of us, I think, feel that way. But the idea that you would attack someone for a relative is—man, that’s so dark.

CHERYL HINES: I think it’s really strange. It’s strange.

TUCKER CARLSON: You’re a nice person. I can tell you’re restraining yourself. You just see so much of this. And that’s the same attitude, you know, like, well, let’s kill the Tutsis because they’re Tutsis and their parents are bad, so let’s kill the kids. Like, that’s just not the way to think. That’s not the Christian way to think. It’s not the humane way to think. And it was never the American way to think. And it is all of a sudden, and you’re a victim of it.

CHERYL HINES: Well, it’s an odd place to be. It’s a strange, it’s very odd place. You know what, something that stood out to me, like during all this time when tables were sort of turning after the 2020 election and Biden became president, I had a friend, a good friend of mine who’s no longer speaking to me, but she said, “I wonder what Melania is going to do now,” this after the election.

I said, “Oh, I don’t know, she could probably do anything she wants.” She goes, “I hope she can’t. I hope she can’t do anything.” And I was like, “What are you talking about?” And she said, “Well, if she is married to Donald Trump, I hope she can’t do anything.” And I just, it was eye opening to me. I thought, whoa, that’s odd.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s hate. That’s actual hate.

CHERYL HINES: I said, “So?” And she said, “Haven’t you thought that?” And I said, “I have not. No, I said, I have not spent one moment hoping something horrible for somebody else.” It was so—but just to know, like that’s what’s living on in her mind. Like she has spent, even if it’s two minutes of her day. But it clearly, it sounded like it was more than that.

Must spend time wishing and—but by the way, everything that I know about Melania Trump is pretty amazing. She only, she does a lot of work for children and she does it quietly and she doesn’t need fanfare for it. But she really works hard to try to reunite children with their parents for a lot of different programs that she works. But so for one of my friends to be wishing something on somebody that she doesn’t even know. This person, I don’t know. It was eye opening to me.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, again, it’s back to the same mindset. So she didn’t say, “I hate Melania because of these three things she did.” It was her connection to someone she doesn’t like that made her guilty.

CHERYL HINES: You know what? I don’t know why that brings such clarity to me. Because like I said, now this friend does not talk to me.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, because you’re married to the wrong person.

CHERYL HINES: Oh, my gosh. I never—why did I never connect that well?

TUCKER CARLSON: This is, like, the root of a lot of the world’s problems. It’s like, let’s kill their families, too. It’s what’s happening in a lot of places in the world right now, and it’s happening in Los Angeles.

CHERYL HINES: It’s pretty crazy. Yeah. And I thought it was crazy at the time. It’s like, whoa, you hate her only because she’s married to somebody else you—

TUCKER CARLSON: Hate and she won’t speak to you. This is a coworker, friend from your business.

CHERYL HINES: Well, I had been friends with her since—for 30 years.

TUCKER CARLSON: Oh, gosh. Oh, I’m sorry.

CHERYL HINES: Well, thank you. And, you know, I’ve come to—did you have to ask yourself, well, if that’s who this person is, is that who I—

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, that’s right.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

The Secret Service Protection Issue

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. No, I think that’s right. So one more sore subject, but the security thing, that was very upsetting to me. I mean, I know your husband, and I really love your husband, so that was part of it. But even if I didn’t like your husband, I would, and I very much do. But I would—even if I didn’t, I would think, hmm.

Presidential candidates ought to have Secret Service protection if it’s a real candidacy, traveling around the country with staff, which he was packing venues, which he was very famous person. And then, of course, the whole his family backstory is so unbelievable. Right. So we don’t need to be reminded of what could happen. It’s obvious. And yet he did not have Secret Service protection from the Biden administration.

CHERYL HINES: He did not.

TUCKER CARLSON: Okay? They wanted him out of the race one way or the other. I think that’s the obvious conclusion there. That’s so dark and sick. But here’s my question. I didn’t see many prominent people stand up, including people he’s related to, and say, “Whoa, wait a second. This man needs Secret Service. His father was murdered. Are you joking?”

Like, what was that? Why was there no outcry over that? I was with him in some city, New York, I think. Oh, it was at MSG. It was last—I don’t know when it was, whenever I traveled, but it was somewhere. And I was walking down the street with him. No, it was in D.C. and he had no Secret Service protection at all.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I was like, what is going on?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: Why didn’t people say—why didn’t prominent people—

CHERYL HINES: Isn’t it crazy? It is crazy to me.

TUCKER CARLSON: Do you notice this?

CHERYL HINES: Oh, yeah, well, I do. I talk about this in my book “Too Unscripted,” because that was—that was also part of what, you know, there were so many things that were very surreal about it, about Bobby running, but that was one of them where, you know, that was a big concern.

The biggest concern about him running was security, because I’m like, this is—you’re putting yourself out there. And yes, your father was assassinated while he was running for president. Your uncle was assassinated when he was president. That is—this is so dangerous.

And then I thought at the beginning, I thought, okay, he’s announcing he’s running for president. We’ll see what happens in the primaries. Because in the primaries, we’ll know if he had support or not. And it’ll go one way or the other. So I thought, maybe this is going to go on. Maybe he’ll be running for, I don’t know, five or six months or something.

And we had a private security, and he, you know, applied for Secret Service. And first, first of all, they didn’t even respond to him in a normal timeline. So it was just like, well, we’ll wait, we’ll see, we’ll see, we’ll see.

And then when Bobby switched to running as an independent, the Democrats came out basically and said on TV, I watched an interview where they said, “No, we are going to make sure that RFK Jr. spends all of his money on lawsuits. We’re going to keep suing him so he has no money for his campaign.”

And then, you know, what we could hear people talk about not in front of the camera was also, “We’re going to make sure he has to spend a lot of money on security so he doesn’t have money for his campaign.” And also heard if he was given Secret Service, then it would legitimize him as a candidate, and they didn’t want that.

So all of that was happening. And then, yes, you had some family members who came out publicly against Bobby and said, “But we love him.” But I never saw any of them publicly say, “Even though we don’t agree with him politically, we are concerned about his safety.”

TUCKER CARLSON: You didn’t hear any say that?

CHERYL HINES: I did not. Of his siblings? No, I did not.

TUCKER CARLSON: Sick. It’s the sickest thing. Sorry. You don’t have to say that. It’s—they’re your in-laws, but, I mean, I can’t imagine anything more loathsome than that.

Meeting President Trump

CHERYL HINES: Hard to believe. Really hard to believe. And then, you know, I went down a rabbit hole when I was writing this book because at the time, people, different outlets would give different reasons why, of course Robert Kennedy didn’t get Secret Service. “It’s too early.” But then you would look. I would look up, and Barack Obama got it 300 and something days before the election. You know, people got it 200 days before the election. So that was not it there. Some people got it before they even announced that they were running.

So whatever they were saying, they always were trying to make Bobby look like he’s being ridiculous. “You’re being ridiculous for asking. You’re not even a real candidate.” And meanwhile, you know, he had someone show up at one of his rallies with loaded weapons, you know, pretending to be a federal agent, flashing badges, and they arrested him.

But then I was home watching when a guy came over my back fence and was approaching the house. I was doing an Instagram live with my friend from Tallahassee, and I said, “I see this guy out the window.” And she said, “Are you okay?” I said, “I think I have to go. Something’s happening.” And then I see our security guard, you know, take his weapon out. And I’m watching this on Instagram Live and I said, “I really do have to wrap it up.”

So, yeah, that guy was apprehended, was arrested by LAPD, was released, and then took an Uber back to our house and was arrested again the same day. And both of those events were publicized. People knew about it. I was in LA when it happened. When one guy was arrested at the rally, it made the local news. I don’t know if it made the national news, but people knew. People in the administration knew. People in Bobby’s family knew. And it’s not everybody. I know there were a few members of the family that I know that inquired.

TUCKER CARLSON: Issuing a public statement and calling Joe Biden to provide their brother with Secret Service would have fixed that in about two seconds.

CHERYL HINES: That’s what President Trump did.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah. Oh, I know. It’s just crazy that it took Trump, right, to provide protection to Bobby Kennedy.

CHERYL HINES: I know, a year and a half later, you know, Bobby had been running for a year and a half by that point.

The Trump Endorsement

TUCKER CARLSON: So, okay, the night Trump is shot in Butler, Bobby and Trump speak for the first time and start kind of feeling each other out about maybe we could team up. Maybe Bobby could endorse Trump, which would be, at the time seemed completely crazy, but was clearly possible. From your perspective, like what? I mean, first your husband comes out against vaccines, then he attacks Fauci, then he runs for president, and now he’s thinking about endorsing Donald Trump. I mean, these are, like, how many more red lines are there in Hollywood?

CHERYL HINES: I think, yeah, that was definitely the last strike.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, that was it, huh?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. That was beyond anything anybody could take. Some people. But, yeah, it was. That was that. It’s all been a learning process for me, you know, and to, it’s been, sometimes it has tested me to take a step back and get a different perspective, because, like you said, that was something I could not have ever imagined.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, well, it was a big deal. I mean, the Trump people who very much wanted, I know, you know, Bobby’s endorsement, wanted him to campaign with them, wanted to bring on the administration, knew that your opinion was really important to him, obviously, or his wife, but he really cared about what you thought, and they were like, they were focused on that. So when was your first time you met Donald Trump?

CHERYL HINES: I met him, the assassination attempt was on Saturday, and I met him on that Monday morning. I don’t remember the dates, by any means, but that was July, mid-July.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, it started Monday night.

CHERYL HINES: Right. So President Trump wanted to meet with Bobby that morning in Milwaukee.

TUCKER CARLSON: They had talked for the first time on Saturday, and then by Monday, you were out there.

CHERYL HINES: That’s right.

TUCKER CARLSON: They work fast.

CHERYL HINES: Well, we see that in this administration. They work fast. Yeah. So, yeah, everything was happening quickly. But, you know, there was a shift. There was a huge shift when there was the assassination attempt on Donald Trump. So many people were, a lot of Americans felt like that this is too much, and now we really have to get behind Trump. This is too much. So there was that shift going on, and at the same time, it had to be emotional for President Trump and his family. I mean, the bullet came very close to killing him in inches. That’s dramatic.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: So there was a lot there. There was a lot going on and a lot of even emotions happening. So when they started talking on Saturday they said they wanted to meet on Monday. I was going to meet Bobby after this meeting. He was going to sit down with the President. They were going to talk and see what was what, if anything, if they wanted to work together, if they didn’t, if they agreed on things, if they didn’t.

And I was going to meet with Bobby after that meeting. But when I landed in Milwaukee, the security said, “Oh, we’re taking you straight to the meeting.” I said, “I’m going to the meeting?” So it was interesting. That was the first time I walked in and it was Bobby and Amaryllis, who was my daughter-in-law. Yeah. Who was running Bobby’s campaign at the time. Susie Wiles, who was running Donald Trump’s campaign and Donald Trump. And that was the first time I met him and he shook my hand and you know, he was a very genuine person and it was, I don’t know, I don’t want to say surprising, maybe surprising out of body experience.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, here you work on Curb Your Enthusiasm, you live in LA for 30 years. I know Donald Trump’s the enemy and all of a sudden you’re like in a meeting with him.

CHERYL HINES: I know. By the way, there’s an episode of Curb where Larry wears a MAGA hat to repel people in LA so he doesn’t have to have lunch with people, which is funny, but it’s also true. Which is also funny, but yeah. So I was, I don’t know, I was expecting something else.

TUCKER CARLSON: What were you expecting? Horns, Sulfur?

CHERYL HINES: I was expecting, I think I was expecting somebody who didn’t listen to other people, wouldn’t be interested in other people. And that’s not who I met. I met somebody who was very interested in other people, really wanted to hear what somebody else had to say. I think that was very surprising to me.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you call back to LA and say, “Hey guys, he’s actually cool?”

Secret Service Protection

CHERYL HINES: Good news, guys. I didn’t even tell anybody at the time. And it was so stressful. There was stress for so many reasons at that time. Security, number one reason. Right. I mean, this just happened with Donald Trump with Secret Service protection. And Bobby still didn’t have Secret Service protection. And during that meeting, President Trump posted “Bobby Kennedy should have Secret Service protection. This is ridiculous.” And that day Bobby got Secret Service protection.

I mean, were the wheels already in motion? Perhaps. But the other thing about, so he ended up getting Secret Service protection. It was a presidential, an executive order, which was fine, but usually when a presidential candidate gets Secret Service protection when they’re running their spouse, their family also has protection. But because this was an executive order, it was just for Bobby, which was also strange because suddenly I’m in the house, I’m in my house and now we have Secret Service, Bobby has Secret Service.

So I will be in the house with the kids for two days and then Bobby’s coming into town and then we have to evacuate the house so they can do a bomb sweep before Bobby gets there.

TUCKER CARLSON: Your house?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, I’m thinking, “Oh, the house that we’ve just been in for three days. Nobody cared about the bomb then. This is weird.” But yeah, that’s how it was. So it was straight. I thought that was strange too. So it was just very, it was a very stressful time.

So after, so during that meeting. Right, so I mean stressful already, that there was an assassination attempt on Donald Trump. That’s so stressful. That’s so awful. And what does that say about us? And then now he’s meeting with Bobby because they’re talking about perhaps working together. Also stressful. And then that day we get Secret Service protection. So that’s another, you know, crazy thing that’s happening because now you’re talking about police, you know, sheriffs everywhere around your house and motorcades everywhere Bobby goes. Everywhere Bobby goes. Just like motorcade. I’m sure the neighbors didn’t love it.

And the dogs, you know, now we had bomb sniffing dogs and we already had our crazy dogs. Was just all of it was a lot happening at once. Yeah, that’s when I was just telling you I broke into hives. And then later that day while I was in Milwaukee, my lips started swelling. I mean, a crazy amount. It is a crazy amount. So much so that I had to go to the emergency room because I was worried that my throat might close up. It was all from stress.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s wild.

CHERYL HINES: It’s crazy.

Telling Friends Back Home

TUCKER CARLSON: So when was the first time you told people back home that Trump was actually kind of normal in person?

CHERYL HINES: Well, I really didn’t tell my friends. I told my, I’m very close to my sister, my brother. So they’re really the, you know, my sounding board. One of my best friends back in LA. I mean, I have a few best friends back in LA. I wouldn’t even tell them that because I didn’t want them to be stressed about it. I didn’t want people to know because I don’t need that other people asking them about it. Because I know that there are, people are already mad because I’m married to Bobby.

I don’t need people being mad at my friends because I’m married to Bobby and they’re friends with me. So I wasn’t even telling people. I don’t want to put them in a position of, “Oh, my God, I can’t believe your friend did this.” Does that make sense?

TUCKER CARLSON: Of course. I mean, it makes sense if you live in a completely insane world where talking to Donald Trump is a death penalty offense. I mean, it’s so f*ing nuts that it’s hard to know how even to…

CHERYL HINES: No, it’s crazy. Yeah. But, you know, my family, my sister and my brother, they were like, “Yeah, that makes sense. That’s really interesting.” You know, they were very curious to hear about it and how, what I thought about it and what I, how I found Donald Trump to be. They were like, “Wow, that’s so interesting.” But I guess that makes sense because you do hear that about him. You hear that he’s, people say he’s charming, and I understand why, because somebody who is, somebody that you meet that feels completely comfortable with who they are, completely comfortable in their own skin, they come across as charming. Of course, because it’s like, “Oh, I don’t need to put on any airs. I don’t need to be anybody other than I am.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Exactly.

CHERYL HINES: And that’s who I found him to be. I found him to be just a genuine person.

Meeting Melania

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you ever meet Melania?

CHERYL HINES: Yes, I’ve met her a few times.

TUCKER CARLSON: What do you think?

CHERYL HINES: I really like her.

TUCKER CARLSON: Did you call your friend in LA and say, “Actually, she’s pretty cool?”

CHERYL HINES: I did. Actually, yeah. I mean, Melania, I haven’t had, I’ve definitely had more time with President Trump than Melania. Just a few moments with Melania, but she was so sweet to me. One of the first things that we went to after the administration started was the governor’s dinner at the White House. It was very beautiful dinner with all the governors. And I just had one tiny moment with Melania and she asked me how I was finding D.C. and how I was doing with everything.

And she said, “You should really try to enjoy it.” And I took that in because I thought, “Yeah, you’re right.” Because up until that moment, I was thinking, “I don’t know if I’m going to like this. I don’t know if I am ready for this. I don’t know.” Which she said that. I thought, “Yeah, why don’t I try to enjoy it?”

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah, why not?

CHERYL HINES: And then it really, I don’t know, it really, those were the words I needed to hear at that moment.

TUCKER CARLSON: Have you enjoyed it?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, really. Not all of it, but I’ve enjoyed. I enjoy the people that I spend time with in D.C. I really like the people that Bobby works with.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

CHERYL HINES: I like their spouses. I like them as people, you know, as someone to hang out with and talk to at the dinner party. I really like them.

The View Appearance and Vaccine Criticism

TUCKER CARLSON: You had an appearance on The View the other day, which I saw part of it. And they immediately start attacking you for your husband because they’re feminists. Does that make sense?

CHERYL HINES: But.

TUCKER CARLSON: They were the criticism of him. And then to direct it at you, I guess I’ve said it eight times, but I really mean it is insane. But it’s all about the vaccines. What is that? Why is it that someone, because he has said many times, including to me, against vaccines on principle, but some of these vaccines are clearly dangerous, and they are, and that’s proven. And why wouldn’t we try to make them safer? Why would that be a controversial statement? I’m honestly confused.

CHERYL HINES: So am I. I am honestly confused by that. And I’m confused by people attacking the parents who say, “My child is different since they received the vaccine.” It’s very strange for other people to say, “You are crazy. How dare you say that? How dare you blame the vaccine?”

And these are parents who said, “Oh, I’m just telling you my experience. My experience was my child was hitting developmental markers, my child was hitting milestones. And then they got the vaccine and everything changed.” Why are we yelling at those parents? That’s what I really don’t understand either. When did that start?

TUCKER CARLSON: You know, I don’t know anyone like that. Just because I shield myself from anyone who would even gives a hint of having those attitudes, because I can’t deal with it. So I don’t know the answer. But you know a lot of these people personally. What do you think the answer is?

CHERYL HINES: There’s something about vaccines that they’ve made. People have made very political in a way that’s hard to understand because if you’re talking about cancer or talking about different ways to treat cancer, people don’t get upset about it.

TUCKER CARLSON: That’s right.

CHERYL HINES: People don’t yell at you about it.

TUCKER CARLSON: They don’t think chemo, just radiation. Damn you.

CHERYL HINES: Right. So there’s something about the mindset of people. The mindset of some people is you are putting everybody in danger if you don’t get vaccinated. And once again, it goes back to what you said. Well, if you have the vaccine, you should feel pretty good that you’re not going to get it, because that’s why you got the vaccine.

TUCKER CARLSON: Right. But it’s like yelling at me for not wearing a seatbelt.

CHERYL HINES: Right.

TUCKER CARLSON: What does that have to do with you?

CHERYL HINES: Right. And somehow it’s, I really don’t understand it. I don’t understand how when people got mad at other people, also women turning on each other. I find motherhood is challenging enough, parenthood. If another mother is telling me, “Wow, this is what happened. This was my experience with me and my child,” why would I be judging that person? Because I think she’s lying to me. Why would she be lying? Who’s lying about this? Why would somebody lie about it? It doesn’t make sense to me.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, it doesn’t.

CHERYL HINES: They’re not. Nobody’s gaining anything by sharing their story. So I don’t know why they’re so mad about vaccines. Some people are worried that if you question the safety or if you, like I said on The View, I said, “You know, can we do better? Can we make them safer? So there aren’t as many injuries.”

There are a lot of injuries. A lot. The vaccine injury compensation program has paid out $5.4 billion. That’s what I told them on The View. And no response. Nobody said anything. No, Whoopi asked me if it was just Covid. I said, “Oh, I think it was for all vaccines, but can we just look at that without thinking about it in a political way and say, oh, well, people are being compensated for vaccine injuries. There’s a whole service set up for it.”

Can we just say, can both sides agree? “Oh, you’re right. Somebody has been injured by it. They proved it in court.” So can we start there? It’s like you’re saying, can we just start at one place where we all agree on something and then say, “Well, can we do a vaccine where less people are injured?” Why is that?

TUCKER CARLSON: Same vaccine, fewer deaths?

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. Is that crazy? Why is that? Why does that make people mad? I don’t know. I really don’t know.

TUCKER CARLSON: You really don’t?

CHERYL HINES: I really don’t.

The Religious Element of Vaccine Debate

TUCKER CARLSON: It does seem, I mean, I’m trying to, I’ve thought about this for years, ever since your husband blew up this topic. I’ve been thinking about it many years ago when he wrote that Rolling Stone piece, 15, 20 years ago. And I knew him and I admired him as a writer. He’s a great writer and in addition to other things.

And I watched him literally end his career and all these friendships. And Bobby Kennedy was like, he’s a Kennedy. That’s so cool. It went from that to Bobby Kennedy’s name may not be spoken because he criticized vaccines. And I’ve been trying to figure out what that’s about ever since.

CHERYL HINES: What do you think it’s about?

TUCKER CARLSON: I think there’s a spiritual element to it. I think there’s a, this is a religion, this is not rational. That’s the first thing I noticed. Second, this is long standing. Diego Rivera, the communist Mexican muralist, wrote or drew, painted a fairly famous mural of a child getting vaccines. And it looks like the kind of classic Christian Christmas image of Jesus in the manger, but instead of a cross, it’s vaccines.

And that was painted in the 30s. It was like a WPA program or something. You can look it up on the Internet. It’s really interesting for what it reveals of the mindset around vaccines, but it’s like a ritual. This is not, because again, it’s not a question about what’s the most effective oncology.

CHERYL HINES: Right, right.

TUCKER CARLSON: It’s way deeper and pre-rational. So that’s religion. That’s not science, that’s religion.

CHERYL HINES: Well, it’s interesting when you’re talking about it that way. It is interesting because it’s probably the only thing that people are asked to do as a group. Regardless of who you are, regardless of what your religion, what your health is, you’re asked to take the vaccine and don’t ask questions.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

CHERYL HINES: So I guess maybe that’s where it started. Right. They had to convince people that no, this is for everybody and you can’t ask questions. Everybody’s doing it. Just everybody’s doing it. That’s all you need to know.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, yeah, but I mean, for sure, people used to burn widows, or whatever. People had all kinds of ugly primitive rituals that they were ultimately talked out of that were once compulsory, which are now reviled. I get it. But this one has been the same for 90 years. There’s something piercing the skin, injecting something into somebody. I mean, there’s a control element, but there’s also a ritualistic component to that.

CHERYL HINES: That’s so crazy.

TUCKER CARLSON: Go look up the Diego Rivera, and I hope I’m not screwing this up, but I don’t think that I am, mural. I mean, that’s wild. He just lays it out there like, this is your new religion, vaccines. There’s the baby Jesus getting needles in him.

CHERYL HINES: It’s so crazy, right?

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, there’s like ritual bloodletting. I mean, look, I’ve arrived at this over many years of thinking about it because I can’t think of another explanation.

CHERYL HINES: It is really hard. I mean, yeah, don’t question. Don’t question authority, definitely.

TUCKER CARLSON: And then punish the guy’s relatives who questions it.

CHERYL HINES: That part. There is that part. But the other thing, too, that I have a hard time understanding, the people that are saying, “You know, vaccines were tested, however long ago, 40 years ago, 20 years ago, and they were tested to be fine.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: So stop asking questions about it. There are drugs on the market all the time that are approved. Then 10 years later, 20 years later, you see a lot of people have been injured and they pull the drug because they’re like, “This is not working.” They used to X-ray women when they were pregnant in the 50s because.

TUCKER CARLSON: It gave them thalidomide. Yeah.

CHERYL HINES: Because they thought it was a great new technology.

TUCKER CARLSON: Vanilla wafers were considered a health food when I was a kid because they had wheat in them.

CHERYL HINES: Because they had wheat in them. Remember smoking? Your parents would be in a car with the windows rolled up and 100%, but they didn’t know that at the time that they were harmful or causing cancer to the kids in the back.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, it’s delicious.

CHERYL HINES: And then at some point, you know, there’s a stop down. People say, “Oh, we just learned that this is not good for you, that you shouldn’t be taking this, that this drug isn’t working,” that you learn things all the time. And everybody stops down and makes a new choice. Right. And says, “Oh, okay, yeah, I’m going to stop using that.”

So it happens all the time. So for people to say, it can absolutely not happen with vaccines, there’s no way. There’s no way to make them better or to, because they’re great already. It’s so strange.

TUCKER CARLSON: No, but it’s a religious concept. Not one word can be added or deleted. It’s perfect. It’s holy writ. It cannot be changed. It came from God himself. These are the tablets right here. I mean, this is, I know it’s hard. Meditate on this.

CHERYL HINES: I know I’m going to think about this. No, I have never connected.

Life Lessons and What Really Matters

TUCKER CARLSON: So I met very few people who’ve had a life with the trajectory that yours has had. I don’t even, it’s not really an arc. It’s more like, as you described, a hairpin turn in this direction. The last, you know, so you grew up in one world, enter a completely different world, rise to the top of that world, and then all of a sudden, you’re in a completely different world.

What are the conclusions you draw from this? What have you learned? And it’s still ongoing, by the way. So I can’t, I don’t expect.

CHERYL HINES: So what you think? No, you know, what I’ve learned. I mean, I’ve learned a lot of things. Of course I’ve learned. And I always felt like I knew what really matters. My family has always been the most important thing to me. That’s why the best thing about getting married is that you get to pick a family member. It’s the only time in your life where you get to pick somebody to be a part of your family. And that’s pretty amazing. I learned that that is really the only thing that matters.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

CHERYL HINES: It’s your family. So for me, I mean, there have been times with Bobby that when I get frustrated and I feel like I can’t believe you said that or said it like that, and I’m like, why would you do that? And it doesn’t matter so little in the big scheme of things.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

CHERYL HINES: What matters is how you love people. And I think too, how you receive love. So even some of my friendships that have, that did not survive this. Right. Too emotional. Too emotional for them to be friends with me because of what Bobby does. I learned to, you know, accept that’s okay.

And I can still love who they are and what we had together. I don’t have to spend time missing it or being sad or whatever that is. I can step back and say, “Oh, that person was the right time, the right person at the right time. And I loved what we had.”

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

Learning Politics From the Inside

And I’m not angry or sad about it. And at the same time, you know, I just turned 60, and I’m at a place where I really have learned a lot just in terms of learning brand new things in my life that I never thought I would. And it’s not—this isn’t like we talked about politics. I never set out to—I can’t wait to learn a lot about politics. But I did, you know, even in the election, I learned a lot about how to run a campaign, what it looks like from the inside of a presidential campaign.

You learn about press and rumors, and if somebody says something enough times, then it becomes the truth to people. So I learned all of that. And even when Bobby switched to being an independent, just learning every state, you have to have a certain amount of signatures from different people, and you turn them in at different times in the calendar year. So even learning that stuff, which I never wanted to learn, but I know it now.

Fascinating to me that now being in D.C. and now being sitting where I am and seeing what I see and being around the people that I’m around, I can say that the people in the Cabinet, people in the administration, really want what’s best for this country. And it may sound silly that I didn’t recognize that before because I felt like, well, I’m sure there are people that are in it for themselves and that want, you know. But where I see it, that is not the case.

The case is that everybody sits at the table and they say, “What can we do to make the country better? To work together?” And that was—that’s interesting to me. And I keep—I’m learning more now about politics, about how things—what has to happen to change a law or to get something done in D.C. or to make a change in the nation. I’m learning all these big concepts that I otherwise would not have thought about. And I find it fascinating.

I find the people that I’m sitting next to at dinner fascinating. They’re smart and they have hard jobs. Very difficult jobs.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

CHERYL HINES: And I think a lot of people—you have people maybe in LA that sit around and say, “Oh, I can do it so much better.” It’s like, I don’t think so, otherwise you’d be doing it.

A New Chapter at 60

TUCKER CARLSON: How long were you in LA?

CHERYL HINES: Over 30 years. Yeah, over 30 years.

TUCKER CARLSON: I mean, it just seems to me that given how fast everything is changing, you’re so blessed to be, in part, doing something different, learning new things.

CHERYL HINES: I agree with that. Yeah.

TUCKER CARLSON: And I mean, sometimes what we think are tragedies turn out to be the greatest blessings. And I mean, I don’t know, you’re still interested in stuff, which is pretty great at 60.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah, listen, I have a lot of friends who, their kids have grown up and moved out and now they’re bored and they’re trying to figure out how to fill the day.

TUCKER CARLSON: Yes.

CHERYL HINES: I don’t have that.

TUCKER CARLSON: And the business they were in is dying or changing really fast, really hard.

CHERYL HINES: Yeah. The entertainment industry is really a tough place to be in right now. So I, yeah, I find it fascinating and maybe because I have been in the entertainment industry and, you know, I mean, there are a lot of films, TV shows about politics and politicians because it’s fascinating. And so we like to watch it. We like to watch it play out on the screen, but then to now be in the middle of it, seeing it, it’s pretty great.

TUCKER CARLSON: I love that. Cheryl Hines, you’re a deep person and I’m grateful that you came.

CHERYL HINES: Thank you, Tucker. I really like talking to you.

Related Posts

• Transcript: Actress Katee Sackhoff on Joe Rogan Podcast #2400
• Actress Mariska Hargitay on Good Hang with Amy Poehler (Transcript)
• Arnold Schwarzenegger on This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #587 (Transcript)
• Transcript: Victoria Beckham on Call Her Daddy Podcast
• Transcript: Taylor Swift’s Interview on BBC Radio 1 with Greg James