I’ve been very fortunate to have the opportunity to do some recent television work for Extra, the entertainment news show. The first was an interview with Jerry Seinfeld, a real pinch-me gift. I also had a really fun chat with the delightful Debbie Matenopoulos, one of the original co-hosts of The View.
Most recently, I was asked to do red carpet interviews at the premiere of a new Apple TV+ show called “The Shrink Next Door,” starring Will Ferrell, Paul Rudd, Casey Wilson and none other than my cousin Kathryn Hahn.
The experience was surreal for a couple of reasons, first of which was that I have absolutely zero experience interviewing anyone in a red carpet/premiere setting. But I tried to remember that my former boss Joan Rivers had no red carpet experience until her first time basically creating the red carpet event as we currently know it. Lest we forget, she was the one who coined the question “Who are you wearing?”
The other daunting factor was that I would not be just interviewing Kathryn, but I would be seeing her for the first time since the pandemic started. I wasn’t really prepared for what happened when she was directly in front of me and I got to put my arms around her.
I moved to New York in 1994 and got a job booking appointments for hair stylist icon Garren at his salon in Henri Bendel on Fifth Avenue. A year later, after Kathryn graduated from Northwestern University, she moved here with her then boyfriend now husband Ethan. Kathryn needed a job, and I hooked her up with Garren and he loved her immediately. For the next year or so, we worked together at the salon. Having her in the city was a lot of fun, and Garren was very good to us when we needed time off to go on an audition or rehearse a play we got cast in.
In 2001, Kathryn got her first big break as a series regular on a new NBC show called “Crossing Jordan” and I lost her to Los Angeles, where she and Ethan have been working and raising two amazing kids ever since. With the exception of a summer where she starred in the hilarious “Boeing Boeing” on Broadway in 2008, it’s been brief but delicious visits in the city. She’s like a kid sister I wish I had, and I miss her a lot.
So when we saw one another on the red carpet, there was a lot going on. Two cousins with such a history… family… kids who came to New York basically at the same time, each with respective dreams and journeys that started here… seeing one another for the first time after nearly two years of an exhausting emotional rollercoaster of a pandemic.
The emotional exhale in the wake of all that is right there on camera in the interview.
And in an homage to my old boss and one of my idols, I managed to get in Joan Rivers’ signature red carpet question: Who are you wearing? Kathryn wore a gorgeous chalkstripe ‘Edna’ jumpsuit by Emilia Wickstead. She looked stunning, and I could not be prouder.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – OCTOBER 28: Kathryn Hahn attends “The Shrink Next Door” New York Premiere at The Morgan Library on October 28, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)
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7 Comments
I remember watching the gorgeous Ms. Hahn on Crossing Jordan (a favourite show of mine). Her involvement in WandaVision was one of the reasons I was so excited about the show.
Oh George, You are the best thing to happen to the city that never sleeps…I watch your Insta post every day..you make laughs and cry and ponder and scream at the helicopters….I adore you…there is no other..you are the grandest. Loved the Xtra piece with your cousin and with Jerry Seinfeld…yOU ARE SO RELAXED….no nerves..no tremors…you don’t skip a beat…always right in the thick of it all..I ADORE YOU…YOU make an old lady (living in Jerusalem..of all places), bearable…
Oh, George, you make every day of my life…watching you on Insta..you make me laugh cry and scream at the helicopters…you are such a natural, gifted, articulate , eloquent gentleman, with the gift of gab..you never miss a beat…What would NYC do without you? I am a born New Yawkah, but, baby, you ARE a New YAWKAH…faw eval!
The interviews were so REAL….perfect….and the gift of seeing your cousin after so long and interviewing her and Will and Mark…you know just what to ask, to do, say….what a gift you have…A big show needs to grab you quickly…or, better yet, you need your own show (but your Insta fans have been telling you that for so long and .well..something is in the air. I can feel it…This is your time, George…grab the brass ring. Love every inch of you. There is only one YOU.
This is so great. You have mentioned her briefly on the podcast. Very emotional.
Now you need to interview Amy Poehler!
I really enjoyed that, Thanks, George.
Thanks, Hal!
Dear George, You make me miss my decade+ in NYC. Wishing you continued success. Harry.