Jessica Capshaw on Finding Her Own Identity, Honoring Life’s Transitions and Her New Film ‘Holidate’
Jessica Capshaw, who you can catch in the new laugh-out-loud Netflix film, Holidate, talks about finding her own identity, honoring life’s transitions and the importance of connecting with each other.
Jessica was photographed by David Higgs; hair by Mark Townsend; makeup by Georgie Eisdell.
Interview by Alison Engstrom
Note: This interview was done before the election.
Hi Jessica, it’s great to meet you! Given that 2020 has been a challenging year, how have you been navigating it?
I keep saying this but it’s just because I think it’s true. I think we will probably be able to speak to how this has all been for us in the future because right now we have a convergence of so many challenges. It’s hard to pivot and accommodate these new normals—then throw in all of the other things like the election, the pandemic, and you have the spotlight being shown on the civil unrest, the inequality, the lack of processing and understanding. As a country we are not where we could be; it’s funny, I am so grateful for the freedoms that we have as United States citizens. I am grateful for the ways that we get to lead and live our lives as compared to other countries and governments. At the same time, I think what’s so amazing about America is that we can still push forward. We can still want more; we don’t have to be happy just staying here as land of the free and the brave. We are free and brave because we always pushed. Now is the time for everyone to look around them and take stock of what we have and what we don’t have and to figure out how to energize everyone around us to want to be on the right side of history.
I voted early this morning and I got emotional as I put my ballot through the scanner. It signified so much.
I think it’s very interesting because it is so easy to bond with other people who feel the same about what is going on. The harder pitch is to be around people who think differently and to figure out how to bridge and find a common something to how someone else might think. I think we have it in us, it’s just a way harder path. Everyone feels emotional about this election no matter what side you are on. Everyone thinks that everything is at stake and that’s a bridging quality. We all feel that the soul of the nation and the direction we are going to go in is wrapped up in this election. It’s not like I am that old, I just don’t remember an election that felt this emotional.
I agree with that sentiment. Now to switch gears, we have something in common, we are both from big families but you have me beat with ten siblings! Where are you in line and how has it shaped you to who you are today?
I am the oldest, I am number one as I like to say (laughs). I have a blended family so my genetic father has three kids and then my mom and my other dad have seven and I am the oldest. When I was in college, number five in line was a baby. It wasn’t like The Partridge Family where we all were growing up at the same time. I was going through very different things than my siblings. I think the way that it probably shaped me the most was that I was always in the position as caretaker. As the oldest child, you pass the time by watching your younger brother or sister, or you need you to show up a little bit more responsibly. I think I am in line with the profiles with what they say about first borns.
Since you have had such a great career I’d love to know, what would you say has guided you and your choices along the way?
When I was younger, I think I was socially awkward. I wasn’t so great at fitting in. I still am sometimes and I joke that I passed it along to my kids because we don’t speak sarcasm—when someone is being sarcastic, I think they are just being mean. I didn’t fit in as much as we all want to. It wasn’t easy for me and it seemed so easy for so many people. I believe that led me to have a more interior life, where I was reading a lot and I would imagine things. I spent a lot of time with adults, too. Then maybe when I was in 7th grade, I found a best friend, who lives in New York and is still one of my best friends. Our friendship was the door into feeling like I had someone's back and she had mine and I think the social stuff started getting easier. I then took the interior life and the lonelier times and I brought all of those stories to the forefront and I realized that I really loved telling stories. In a weird way, the stories that I came up with during that time gave birth to me being able to be entertaining.
I come from a family where telling stories translated directly into film and television and theater. I went to Brown and I was in plays and took theater classes; then I started really loving to make people laugh. When I got out of college the world was definitely divided into film and television. I think film was held up as the more prestigious and television was fluffy and more whimsical based. I was so hellbent on my own independence and how to make it on my own because everyone was aware of who my parents were—it was just there. I knew there had to be some way for me to figure out how to be who I was without always being Jessica Capshaw, comma so and so’s parents.
You wanted to create your own identity.
Yes and I think that every person is doing that in their 20s no matter what. Then I started just auditioning, I just wanted to work and get paid for it. I started in television and somewhere along the line, television was something that more and more people were attracted to and unique voices in storytelling and on the director side. I ended up auditioning a couple of times for Grey’s Anatomy and I didnt’ get it but eventually I did end up getting it. Who knew when I started, as a guest star on three episodes, that I would be there for ten years.
What’s been one thing that you have been surprised to learn about yourself since you first started?
I definitely think there was a moment, probably that was aided and abetted most certainly by Netflix. At one point, they had all of the Grey’s Anatomy episodes and people started watching from the beginning; it definitely skewed into the younger demographic with people who would have been very young when the show first started. All of a sudden watching the show and loving it and there was something about that turn that opened up the world for me and people would come up to me and say, that’s Arizona! I remember being with my other dad (Stephen Spielberg) and someone approached the table and in any other world you would have thought they wanted to say they loved something he had done and instead of going to him they came to me. It was one of those moments where you are like, this is so interesting. It wasn’t about feeling famous or recognized, it’s just awesome that your storytelling, work or contributions to a movie, series or play makes people feel some kind of way. That was a shift and definitely unexpected. There was something about the character, Arizona, where I always felt like people’s responses to her always felt like a warm hug.
You ended filming the hit ‘Grey's Anatomy’ in 2018 after ten years. I’d love to get your perspective on after something ends like is it easy for you to close a chapter and move into something else?
I think people always talk about transitions right? And transitions are challenging. It was challenging for sure but now that it’s been two years, the thing I feel the most looking at is the work that I did and the stories that I got to tell on the show I was so grateful for. The thing that I felt leaving was the thing that I never would have thought. It was what that character meant to our progression as a kind, loving and gentle world in which LGBTQ youth and adults can live. Knowing that for some or many that there was representation.
You were one of the first long-running LGBTQ characters on network TV right?
Yeah, I think Arizona was the first series regular gay character. I think that when I started I had no idea that would be the thing that I am the most proud of. I think my understanding and evolution along the way was also wild and amazing. I think when I got out of it, the transition was all about sitting in the place of gratitude for all that I had done and been able to be a part of then putting my eyes on the prize of where I wanted to go, so I started reading thing that were really going to be fun. I wanted to work with people who I respected and enjoyed and then hopefully making people laugh. When I read the script for Holidate, it checked all of the boxes and it wasn’t a lot of pressure because most of the film rests on Emma (Roberts) and Luke (Bracey).
I love the premise of the film Holidate, it’s what people need right now! What made you want to be part of it?
The character was interestingly far from my alter-ego on Grey’s but not that far from me because she has four kids. It all seemed really compelling, since it would be shooting in Atlanta on location. We had so much fun, I laughed so hard. When you put together a bunch of funny people, funny things happen. There was improv, the costumes were insane and working with Kristin Chenoweth, there is nothing that she won’t do. It’s like what you said, it’s what is really fun to watch right now.
Can you share more about your character, Abby?
I think she teeters on this line between feeling like she is the accomplished older sister who has done all of these great things—married the great guy, has had four kids and is crushing the game. I think there is another part of her that thinks, wouldn’t it be so great to be who I am, not care what anyone thinks and to not have to take care of people? She goes back and forth by telling her younger sister what she should do and how she should find a partner. I think the minute she has the chance to be naughty or do the things she wouldn’t normally do, she jumps right on it.
It’s funny, I never felt compelled to bring a date home for the holidays, maybe it was because I had such a big family and didn’t want to subject someone to that!
I felt exactly the same way so I think it might be a function of a big family.
You must be very busy with four kids! How have you been able to carve out time for yourself these days?
Because we are in this time and I am doing a lot of interviews, people are asking me what self-care means to me. For me, it’s definitely not in the pampering column anymore. Self-care, for me, is knowing when you need to take a walk or maybe say to your partner that I really need to be with an adult and we need to go for a walk. Or maybe, it’s calling a girlfriend to bring a lunch and let’s sit in my backyard. It’s like, how do we hold onto our old normal while navigating our new normal in a way that takes care of who we are at the center of our humanness. We are neurobiologically hard-wired to connect and what has been so challenging in this time, whether it’s the pandemic or the devision in our social, economic and political thoughts as Americans, is that it’s preventing us from connecting.
Well-said and I don’t think that social media is connecting.
No and as so many people, I love it and I don’t love it. I’ll post things and then it could be two months before I post anything else (laughs). In these times, I think a lot of people I have been talking to have been asking the question, how does it feel with so many people suffering and having the most challenging time in their lives and literally thinking, am I going to make it? It’s asking, what’s the balance on this Instagram platform? What’s your contribution—does it feel like I am doing great while everyone else is not? Or does it feel like I am giving you a piece of something fun that’s distracting? I constantly go back and forth about it.
What’s next for you?
Before this, I was in Atlanta at a table read for a pilot we were about to shoot for Warner Brothers and FOX. It’s an incredible story that was written by Sarah Watson, who has written for shows like Parenthood, she’s an incredible writer. It’s not easy to create a world in one episode and in the pilot she did such an amazing job. Again, it’s a sister role and I get to have all of these poignant and acute moments but I am not carrying the whole show. It’s incredibly representative of our country makeup, it’s great.