Jennifer Beals Career Retrospective | SAG-AFTRA Foundation Conversations

My name is Tracy Gilchrist. I'm The Advocate's Feminism Editor and it's my pleasure to introduce you to actress, producer and activist Jennifer Beals. I'm really excited to be in this building, I'm really really proud to be in this union, yeah, so unions are a good thing and first, can we get a round of applause for the courage of our generation? Well, first I have to say congratulations on bringing this back, thank you and you know we're going to do a little Poll here about Jennifer's

career

and we'll talk about Generation Q. I really thought you'd do a poll.

Oh, this is exciting. We can do it on Twitter later, so I'll start with a question from the audience. It gets to the roots and it's: did you always know you wanted to be an actress or when did you know and did you ever think about quitting? Well, my first job that I thought I would really want to do was when I was six years old when I discovered dishwashing and I thought it was wonderful to have my hands, water, and wash dishes next to my mom. It was really exciting and I found out that it could be a

career

and that luckily changed very quickly and then I wanted to do it. be a jockey, but I got to be totally yeah mm-hmm and really strong and then I did Fiddler on the Roof and I played hotle and I had this moment that was like a brief, that brief moment where that thing happens that you then chase after. for the rest of your life and I have never considered leaving it no matter what it is.

Oh, how old were you when you played Hahnel? God, I was probably 15 14 15 and do you remember the songs? No, I just remember that feeling, yeah. I don't remember the details mm-hmm, I don't even remember L's dialogue where 2 weeks ago you know he walks in and something remains, but most of the time it's more of a feeling than the actual words. Yes, I am kind with my stories. I'll write a story, look at it, and say I had no idea I wrote that. Speaking of a generational sign, this came about in part because of this deep friendship you have with Alicia Haley, okay, men again.

Ilene Chaiken, yes, and I know you all worked for many years to bring back the l-word in some form, so I'm wondering if you could chat a little bit about the magic that happened between all of you that you know made you bring water. Well, first of all, we're all each other's chosen family in a way, Kate, Leash, Ilene and I and we're very close, but we really thought something would replace the I word right away. We think of something. The lesbian-centric show would replace the l-word because it had done so well and that didn't happen.

I mean, certainly orange is the new black and it took up some of that space, but I think being in prison is not a big aspiration, so we didn't do it. In some ways we have the same kind of patina and then as the years went by it became clear that the terrain was changing and we realized that people were still talking about the l-word online and then this new generation emerged that They refused to be categorized as they refused to let people tell them that they knew their gender identity or sexual orientation and they began to completely change the conversation.

You know when the language can't fit, but with experience, you're in the middle of a huge paradigm shift that is incredibly exciting to live through and also tell those stories, so we thought maybe we could bring back the L word and incorporate these new stories, which I think works very well, yes, I think Marsha did a very good job. work, yes, but to continue, it wasn't that simple just having the right idea. Ilene Chaiken was very busy on Empire and although she really wanted to do it, it was obviously a little complicated for her at the time and then in 2016.

The election happened and I was in South Dakota. I was supposed to go to Standing Rock the next morning to deliver supplies to the camp and and I was texting with Eileen that night, you know, the desperation was mounting and because we saw how divisive this administration is. would be and we wanted to create some kind of bulwark against the coming tsunami and at that point we really dedicated ourselves again to bringing it back in some form. We've talked, so I recently did a cover story for The Advocate on Generation Q and I interviewed Jennifer, Alicia and Kate, which was really wonderful, so we've already talked a little bit and in that you talked a lot about the story and the power of stories to change hearts and minds, so I'm wondering if you would just elaborate on that aspect of doing a type of social work through the power of storytelling and I think even just as an actor, you know, I think As human beings we are largely a construction of the narratives that surround us.

I know that's the beginning what your family tells you who you are what your school tells you who you are your teachers tell you who you are your community at large maybe your church tells you who you are and then the mainstream media and stories Of course, that count yourself begins to inform how you experience yourself and if you never see yourself at the center of an aspirational story, then what does that do to your psyche? And for me, I'm always there if I'm in a moment that I'm in. I'm going through a hard time I just keep telling myself change the narrative change the narrative if you're telling yourself a story that's not helping you right now you need to pivot and tell yourself a different story and those stories to get back to your point I think that those stories that we're trying to tell are trying to confront this ontological insecurity that's happening face to face to try to broaden the embrace and so that people can achieve visibility, which I think creates agency in a sense of purpose and well-being and for those people who are not necessarily being represented, those people who see others represented, maybe it can change their experience and I know that there is a parasocial contact hypothesis that talks about how you know if you see the story of someone who you may have had some prejudice against it can help change that opinion, can help change that feeling and I think that's crucial to building an integrated society, because being very aware of the stories that we tell each other and what you've done often throughout your career, you have chosen some really important projects that we will eventually get to and I don't know if I choose them today on earth as if I think that certain things come to you and make your soul. they vibrate or they and and for me when I have that acceleration or when I'm terrified because when I get really scared when I read something, then I know I have to pay close attention.

Can you share a story about maybe the last time or a recent time that you have a script for a project and you and that happened and that happened oh yeah, the last mogul, yeah, oh my gosh, I haven't even read it yet. I was on the phone with Billy Ray, one of our, you know the showrunner and along with Chris Kaiser and Billy were on the phone with me and we'd never met and he was telling me about this amazing character who, you know, was a huge star of cinema, you know, back then. I think it was the 30s and 40s.

I don't really remember right now I was 30 years old and she was a big movie star and I traveled everywhere with her, he made her black and she was very demanding with her directors and one day her eyes of maid and she is helpless and no one knows that The Maid was her mother and for the entire time she and her mother have been a team trying to change the narrative in any way possible and I have never heard the story told that way and so Of course, that's not the story of the Last Tycoon, but true, that's the story of this particular character and of course there's more, but when I heard him start to tell me the story, my heart started to race and I like, but you know, the hairs on my arms stood up and I went up the stairs.

I walked into the office and told my husband, I'm doing this project and I'm terrified and I have to do it because I'm terrified. Yes, that project is very interesting and I must admit that I have not seen it in its entirety, but I read a lot about Last Tycoon and you play Margo tap mhm and she is an actress in her 30s, right, and you also played, but It is not like an imitation of life, it is as if it were a whole, it is not like that. the tragic story of a mulatto woman, you know?

It's not like it's like "I'm going to make you love me and I'm going to make you love me" and everyone uses sixteen year old boys who were masturbating to my picture when I die and you find out who I was, you're going to rethink the whole structure of the world, there's a lot of active imagination going on in the fantasy desert and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit more about the last tycoon and the role you played in that and what that meant to you oh, I just love her so much and actually, well, I love her a lot because she's extremely powerful, she's extremely self-possessed, and she has this goal and has had this goal since she was probably eight years old. and yet she is so vulnerable with me, at any moment the secret can come out and everything will be destroyed, but she just goes through life with incredible Conan.

You know, it's really exciting to play because when can you do better? I mean, she literally. There is a scene in which she makes each director, before working with each director, make them enter her trailer or her dressing room and lower their pants so she can see them and thus she humiliates them, at least this is the rumor. that she can immediately take power on set, but she never actually does, but everyone thinks she's like that, so it's just as effective, so it was actually a lot of fun to play and, you know, I worked with Matt Bomer and Kelsey Grammer and them and billy-ray, you know, they were extraordinary, really, it was really an extraordinary experience.

Well thanks for sharing, I wanted to talk a little bit about Generation Q again and we're in this time of reboots we had Will & Grace and we had a Tales of the City reboot this year and I'm wondering what it's like for you to play Bette again Porter, a character you got to know so well for six seasons ten years later because I really loved watching them. the Generation Q pilot and seeing how all of your characters, yours and Kate's, had grown up perfectly, I mean, they feel perfect for where they would be ten years later and I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about ria pro qing a. character that you knew so intimately well, I think for me it was really trying to figure out what happens in those ten years that you really know as you go through that journey and what core values ​​stay the same and what core weaknesses stay the same.

I think the weaknesses of her. maybe and then there was the costumes, you know, and I'm looking at Christopher Lawrence because he's a wonderful designer and he understands it and we've worked together before and we were looking at all these different possibilities of what could have changed in the costumes. and I just wasn't feeling good, I wasn't feeling good and I just said, you know, I think I really need the twins, I just need my twins, can we? Yeah, I need my power suit, I need my cufflinks, I mean, that's better. You know they were looking and then as soon as I had that, I went back to that aspect of it.

Wow, the twins did it, yes, the cup was the beginning, yes, that beginning and then things flow from there, you told me. something in our interview in October that made me laugh. I thought it was really funny because I asked anyone who hadn't seen the original movie. It was set in West Hollywood and this was moved to Silver Lake. Oh yes, yes, yes. I asked you what you thought about that and your response was hilarious because I really felt like you really dug into it and worked on the reasons why Bette Porter would be in silver, yeah, what the hell is it that you're so bored of slowing it down? that happens and I realize it's okay, so I always use the pronoun Ike and I'm still in bed, so I went to New York and sold the house and then things happen that I won't talk about because I can't talk. yet and then I go back to Los Angeles and I'm working in the Department of Cultural Affairs which is downtown.

I got a G at a great school that's on the east side and so to be able to go to work, you know, in an easy way. fashion and I have my daughter close to school so they weren't in the car all the time, yeah, so I started putting the pieces together because I thought it was hard for me to imagine Bette there, but then I thought that her he also likes being in You know, the proximity to where things happen, you know, I thought it was so cool that you really had to justify why so much is said about the l-word in terms of LGBTQ visibility, but also, I don't even think we've spoken. at least I don't think we writers do, it's a show about women, yes, and also, and you say this in that wonderful speech and in the pilot when you're on Alice's show that's about women who are The Sisters in the Place of work just work in the world and I wonder if you know well before the end of time or the current push to tell stories about women that you were doing that and I wonder if you could talk a little bit about how to tell those stories as a leader.

In that space I also feel like I don't feel like I was a leader and that's basic, honestly, because I'm not writing the show and I didn't create the show. I was very lucky that Ioffered the role. This amazing universe of a show, you know, but having said that, one of the things that I loved is that let me rewind when we finish the word. Eileen knows that I don't like to watch. Me and I don't normally watch my work because it's really disturbing for me and really difficult because I want to go back and redo everything, but she made me sit down and watch the first four episodes in a row and when we finished, when I finished.

Watching them and I came out and there were all these men like men and women together, like it was necessary, it made me realize that we have this completely heterosexual thing in our heads, at least I did it as a straight sister and and as soon as I dove in watching the show , I realized that that's the audience's experience, that they could also have that shift and start thinking differently, of course, when I'm playing, but it's not there because that's just my reality. and those are my friends, but in the same way I think when you watch the show you know you're so used to a male-centric point of view and when you enter this female-centric world it becomes a really interesting mind shift. and Look at these women with their chosen families, you know, loving each other and pleasing each other and challenging each other, and it's really inspiring, yeah, definitely, it's inspiring.

I want to go back a little to the first part of your career, to you, from my research. and I might have missed things but as far as I know you had a small role in the movie my bodyguard I saw the movie when I was little but I don't remember much and then you were in one of the highest grossing movies of 1983 which you already know is Flashdance and what it was like to go through from being a young actor to one of the most visible stars on the planet. Well, we have to go back to my bodyguard, frankly, yes, of course, because he taught me. a lot, yes, and Tony Bill was the director and he and I became friends and he supported me a lot and I was first an extra and in the movie and then they made me extra special it was great at that time and I had a honey wagon.

I had my own honey cart, which was awesome, and even though the bathroom situation was weird, it was still great and taught me that filmmaking is about waiting, learning to wait, learning to wait, and learning to pace yourself. , as you know. you get to work you're ready to go you're ready to go you're ready to go but well, it's not really work it doesn't really work that way and and find a way to let the horse out the door at the right time and No. it was like I had to do that as an extra, but I was watching, you know, Joan Cusack, I was watching Matt Dillon, I was watching Anna Baldwin, I was watching Chris Makepeace, everyone had to do that at such a young age and it was a very good lesson, so you know, skip to when I'm doing Flashdance and I'm on a honey wagon.

I still understand it. Oh, I need to pace myself and I need to relax and wait for it. proper timing to let the horse out of the gate and visibility. I was in college when I got the role I had it was my first year and I got the role and so I deferred a term so I went straight back to college. It wasn't like I was and Jodie Foster was already there, so that wasn't a phenomenon, no one really cared, and since there are also people who are doing extraordinary things, you know it's okay, so you're a movie actor. , That is fantastic. but guess what you know, I just wrote three novels or I'm an amazing physicist or you know there's all these different talents coming up and this was at Yale, yeah, so I was lucky to be in that environment instead of being in Hollywood where I think that that would have been very healthy, well I have to go back because this is a bit of a silly question, but for the uninitiated, what is the honey wagon?

Oh my God, anyone likes anyone like here fanaa, it's small, it's like um, it's like the tall goats like you know what I mean it's like a small someone laughs in which they know how to live. I'm talking about it's very, very small, it's like in a circus or um, what does it mean? It's called uh, yeah, it's more like a railroad apartment, you know, it's what a railroad apartment is for a penthouse, you know the honey wagon is like a big trailer, yeah, but you all have everything you need . I know they have a place to lay down, you have everything, so it's okay, so we've talked a little bit about the beginning of your career, but I haven't asked you about your training.

Oh, how did you train to be an actor? Is it just the beginning? No, no, I think training is very important. I mean, it's helped me a lot anyway because there are times when you get stuck and have to rely on something else. I had a really wonderful teacher, Bill Esper, who is a Meisner. teacher and Bob Mollica, as well as a Meisner teacher and Maggie Flanigan and I treasure those days and still go to class. I still go to class. I'm about to do a voice workshop at the end of this month so I can continue because I think it's for me, it's very important.

You do not know. I think about ballet dancers and I think about pianists who do scales all the time and never stop doing scales and ballet dancers never stop working at the barre. Do you need some how? I think I really like to still be working in some capacity and also in a place where you can completely take risks and it doesn't cost anyone time, you know, whereas when you're on set it's like let me try it. This crazy thing, you know, and sometimes I do it anyway, but it's nice to be able to experiment in class.

Where did you mention those names? But where did you end up? Yeah, I did some training in Chicago at the Goodman Theatre. At first, but actually New York was when I woke up a little bit and I wanted to go back and ask you when you made my bodyguard how old were you, oh God, I think I was 13, 13 or 14 somewhere out there, really yeah, really . very young and then Tony, it was great to meet Tony, so then I did Flashdance and Tony introduced me to an agent in Los Angeles and that summer after Flashdance I hadn't found a script that I really loved and I had worked my whole life like that.

He had jobs at Baskin-Robbins and Bressler while walking dogs. I paid for college myself, so the idea of ​​having a summer without work was very disconcerting and he said, well, you know you can always come. and he works for me as a reader if you want and then you can read all the different scripts and you know, and then you have a job, so that's what I did. I worked as a reader, yes, teacher, yes, right after that summer, after flashing, I wanted to Talk a little bit about a really fascinating movie you made in the '90s called Twilight of the Goulds, oh yes, yes, I really find it interesting, so in this movie you play a mother or a mother-to-be who is just some kind of test that doesn't exist, but she finds out that her unborn baby is going to grow back, well yeah, her husband is actually a geneticist in a way, so he comes from an Orthodox family and wants to test them. unborn baby and we find out, the baby will be a boy and she will be gay, yes, and she has a gay brother, yes, yes, brendan fraiser.

I find it so fascinating that this was, I think, 1997 and we weren't really talking about this kind of stuff back then and I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that project and being a part of something that was very new, well, it was based in a play, so the play pre-existed the film and again I don't do that when I'm on a project like that. I don't think we didn't talk about this before I started breaking it down like I would any other part, you know. and those problems arise, but the problem is more, you know, oh, I need to go talk to my mother played by fading and ask her what her experience was raising my brother and try to understand that and again it's like just building. all the smaller pieces and not thinking of it as a big kind of social justice, peace and that comes, I think, as a result of putting all those little pieces together, if that makes sense, move forward a little bit because I think it's an interesting medium, you did a web series in 2013 called Lauren, oh yes, yes, yes, yes, with Troy and Bella, I'm sorry, yes, he is phenomenal, yes, I adore her and yes, I wonder if you could talk a little about that, I'm sure, probably, so this was a website. series about sexual harassment in the military mmm-hmm me and you play a soldier just like we tried and I wonder if you could talk about doing a web series if that were different.

I imagine obviously setting it up and filming it are the same thing. but those kind of little pieces, you know what it feels like, it feels like doing a little play in a way because Jon Avnet was our producer and Leslie Linka Gladder directed the show and Troian was my scene partner and you would have these scenes really wonderful ones that were like seven pages long where you really have to dive into things, yeah, the introduction and it was chosen at the last second and she was so fantastic that she just completely immersed herself and was just fierce and really wonderful. and I played her commanding officer and she comes to me with this problem and I basically tell her to shut up and because I know it's happened to me and I know nothing will happen if you report it and which is so It was a painful thing to play. , but it really was a very interesting series, yes, I had forgotten about it and I watched it when it came out and I thought it was exciting, you know, I have it back on my radar.

Oh, great, great, thank you. for reminding me that it was a really fun experience, so we already talked about the last mogul and I feel like there's an interesting kind of precursor to that, which is a devil in a blue dress with Denzel Washington and I didn't write the year of that. It was in I think it was '95, but you also played a white-passing character in that movie and I'm wondering if you talk a little bit about working on that movie, it was also a period piece and working with Denzel, who you worked with twice. . now also in the Book of Eli yes, it is incredible, it is as dreamy as you imagine.

Oh my gosh, I don't know how to... I'm not sure how to approach that conversation because there are so many different ways. First of all, the director was Carl Franklin and and he talked to me about the story from the beginning and I was working on the lady. Parker and the Vicious Circle at the time and then I didn't hear about the movie, so I called my agent and I said, you know, Carl Franklin was talking about this movie, Della Blue Dress, you know, what happened with it and them said, "Oh, well, they feel like a lot of people know that you're biracial and so they're looking for something unknown and every once in a while I read a script and I get this taste in my mouth when I know it's mine." that belongs to me and then I said well, I'm going to call Carl and we had this conversation where I won't tell the whole thing because that would take a long time, needless to say.

I convinced him to let me audition. and he said okay you know you can come and audition and I said well I want to make sure everyone is there and I remember I went out into the desert and I got ready and I got ready and I got ready and I got ready and I came. I walked in and Carl was there, but I don't think Vicky was there. Vicky Thomas and they said, "Well, she's on a call-in show and she's coming, like I said, I'll wait, I'll just wait because she knew as soon as I left him." the horse came out the door, you know, we were going to run, so I waited for everyone and did the scenes and you know we were all crying at the end and they told me okay, you were going to do a screen. test and then I prepared for the screen test and I got all my own props like I had all my own stuff and I went to, you know, I think I might have even gotten to New Orleans and bought things at thrift stores.

Then I looked back at it and I knew I really wanted it, even cigarette cases and perfume bottles and everything, and I put them on the set when I got there and I was shaking like that. I was really nervous because I wanted it so bad and Denzel said it's good he says it means you're in the game it means you know and I did this green test and he just Denzel said I'll see you in the spring and then I think sometimes you just , you really have to fight for what's yours, you know, and it was an incredible experience.

I mean, Denzel is extraordinary, and to me, what was so extraordinary as an actor watching him is how deeply relaxed he was even in the midst of a crisis. Character crisis, there is still a level of relaxation as an actor that is really spectacular and of course Don Cheadle is incredible and I wish I had had more scenes with him, but it was a really fantastic experience, but Margo's story is very different from Daphne's story. Margo rewrites that narrative, so she was very happy to be able to take that experience and then turn it into something else that ends yes, yes and who knows, maybe there's another one that she mentioned, ma'am.

Parker and the Vicious Circle yes, it is a movie that I love, something that I think is really interesting. I'm really inspired by your friendship with Leisha and Kate and Eileen, and that continued and you were in Mrs. Parker in the Circle with Jennifer Jason Leigh, yeah, and then several years later, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Alan made a movie in the one where all his friends starred in, which was the anniversary party, where Christopher designed another movie that I loved and I wonder if you did. Could you talk about the value ofthese lasting friendships in the business.

Well, I think you know how to form these lasting friendships and life is tremendously uplifting for your soul and I think as artists we all feed off each other and feed each other. from each other and support each other and that you know there are certain things that you do in isolation and then there are certain things that require a relationship and if you can be in that relationship with people that you admire and love and trust, that just deepens the experience very, very quickly and You know, I always encourage actors to write, to get together and co-create things, just make things up and especially now that we have these cameras everywhere, it's very easy to make things, even if It's a mess, who cares, just do something. something every day because that creation creates baguettes and those relationships usually beget a deeper relationship and you meet other people and you know you work at the anniversary party and the mrs.

Parker was just, it was so fun and wonderful to see other people work, you know, it was really exciting, yeah, I saw the anniversary party three times at the theater in Hartford Connecticut, that world was crazy because Jennifer said To me she said: Oh, you know, I was staying at his house and he said, Alan and I are writing this little movie and we'd love for you to play Alan's ex-wife and she's a photographer and we'd love for you to play Alan's ex-wife and she she is a photographer. I took all the pictures that she took and she knows Jennifer knew that I love photography and so I said yes, I would love to, I would love to come play with you and I thought, oh, probably in a year, you know, it will take time. .

The script process probably takes three to four months and probably another four months, maybe if they're lucky to get the financing, they had everything ready for like five months or something, it was very fast. I thought, oh my God, we got it. To take all these photos I better hurry up you know so it was really but it was great and it was and it's also lovely to experience their faith in me yeah you know it was really sweet yeah it's fun to move a project so great. you mentioned photography and one thing that I always loved about the original l word was that you took all those beautiful photos of the cast and I think backstage or sorry, offset and true, my hate speech, but you took all these beautiful photos. and you were able to mark it with a book of photographs and could you just chat a little bit about the process of doing that and record that original experience?

I think somewhere in me I'm an archivist and I really love archiving the experience and I started taking pictures from the first rehearsal to the last day we filmed and I think part of that is the love of creating things all the time, you know , it gives you even more energy and I had all these pictures and Kate and Lisa convinced me to go to an L Word convention and because they thought it was fun and they had a great time and you know you should really go so I brought a couple of pictures with me. to auction for various charities and they were very fast and people were very interested in the details of the show and sometimes I put together a photo book for the cast and crew, like when I work on a project I really love. the anniversary party or the lady.

Parker and I put this book together and I thought, oh the fans, they're probably going to be really interested in this, so I started interviewing the cast as well and I included a bunch of interviews in the book and then I sold the book to benefit various charities. . but I like it I like to keep doing things and sometimes when I'm working I draw two I start to draw very badly but I will draw yes and but also just to keep your imagination because it's very easy to get caught up in business things and that frees my mind to start to think about other things and I did a lot when I was drinking.

I did this TV show called Take In and I drew a lot to help me. that character was very, very dark in a way, she was a kind of precursor to the films taken, but no, it was after the films mmm, but my character was the boss or deputy director of the odni and she made people shoot. and don't think about it, it's like it was really intense, it was like being a master of the dark arts, so it must have been fun to play, yeah, we don't have much time left, which is a little surprising because Okay, it seems We've only been here for about 10 minutes.

Are there any more questions people ask? Yeah, I mean, I've asked a lot of questions, so I mean, did you want to ask them to the audience? Yeah, so let's go over these. you ask down there, yeah, so my contacts are a little unstable, so how are you? Okay, so how do you best navigate the industry as an artist of mixed heritage? um I just stay true to myself and I know it's acting and not being and I try really hard, particularly I want to say that happened on the l word when I sat down with Eileen to talk about the potential of being on the show and I just said that I really wish Bette was biracial because she wasn't.

I wasn't originally written as biracial because for me I had never seen myself reflected on any show. I mean, the closest thing I had was Spock, so I really wanted to see that representation, so for me, you know, as soon as I could, you know he wanted to. trying to get mixed-race people to play mixed-race characters so you can have that conversation, uh, what do you value most in a director? Well, on set, my goodness, so many things, intelligence, support, freedom, and creating a safe place to play, and when. I mean those things come to mind Billy Ray and Alex Graves like that, you may have already answered this question, but in case there's something out there, if you weren't an actor, what would you have followed?

I mean, other than being a jockey, I don't know what I would have done, but I think photojournalism is really interesting. You know, I spent time in Haiti in 1989 during the elections that were pretty bloody and I photographed in Port-au-Prince and I was around people like Maggie Steiner and it's a great experience. intense existence, you know, I don't know if I could survive being as volatile as I naturally have, but it's a very exciting and meaningful vocation, I guess, or a nun, that would be nice, not yet, not yet, yeah, my husband, Sam, we. I'm very nervous, well, we have to finish, but thank you very much.

It's really a pleasure to be here.