Cobie Smulders: So, my right ovary was gone, because it was now a massive tumor. My left ovary, we had to take out about two thirds of it.
Cobie Smulders: So I was very, very, very lucky and I was diagnosed from that, from examining the tissue that was removed, I was stage four, which means the cancer has spread to other organs.
Announcer: You're listening to the MILF Podcast. This is the show where we talk about motherhood and sexuality with amazing women with fascinating stories to share on the joys of being a MILF.
Announcer: Now here's your host, the MILF-iest MILF I know, Jennifer Tracy.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys! Welcome back to the show. This is MILF Podcast, the show where we talk about motherhood, entrepreneurship, sexuality and everything in between.
Jennifer Tracy: I'm Jennifer Tracy, your host. Thanks for joining us.
Jennifer Tracy: Today on the show, I have Miss Cobie Smulders. I can't even begin to explain how excited I am to be able to say that, because she was one of the first three people that I called when I knew I was going to be doing this.
Jennifer Tracy: Because she's such a busy, badass, baller MILF it took us this many months to finally hook up and get it going. But we did, and we had an amazing conversation. Cobie is an extraordinary woman, an extraordinary human being, and she has such a big heart. I just can't wait to share this talk with you guys. So, enjoy my conversation with Cobie Smulders!
Jennifer Tracy: Hi Cobie!
Cobie Smulders: It's hard for me not to talk in the microphone like I'm about to do an announcement.
Jennifer Tracy: Go ahead and make an announcement!
Cobie Smulders: Hi there. It's Cobie Smulders here to talk to you about Wheaties.
Cobie Smulders: Do you ever, I grew up with a mother who is British, and I don't know if that's why she's British, does it happen because she was British, but she had the radio on all the time. To CBC News Radio. So that might be why I feel like [crosstalk 00:02:15] if you're going to be [crosstalk 00:02:18] it should be in sort of a newcast-ery voice.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, you have radio [crosstalk 00:02:20] talking. Official. Yes.
Cobie Smulders: Yes. Should we do the whole interview in the newscast-ery voice? [crosstalk 00:02:26] Ludlow. Slowly.
Jennifer Tracy: Soft voiced. Coming through to you from our [crosstalk 00:02:32]
Cobie Smulders: Live. Bedroom studio. In the Pacific Palisades.
Jennifer Tracy: It's Cobie and Jen.
Cobie Smulders: Cobie and Jen! Talking about mom stuff!
Cobie Smulders: There you go, I just did it for you! You could just use that, loop that it.
Jennifer Tracy: You did the whole bit. [crosstalk 00:02:54]
Cobie Smulders: It's gonna be great.
Jennifer Tracy: So, you're from Canada?
Cobie Smulders: That is a true fact, yep.
Jennifer Tracy: Okay. Grew up in Canada.
Cobie Smulders: Yep.
Jennifer Tracy: Did you always want to be an actor?
Cobie Smulders: I think subconsciously I did. It wasn't until I became an actor and people started asking me "Did you always want to become an actor?" "What made you want to become an actor?" And I remember, I don't have a ton of memories from my childhood, but I do remember talking very passionately to my mirror a lot. You know? And pretending to be talking to a boyfriend or someone I was really mad at.
Jennifer Tracy: I still do that.
Cobie Smulders: You do? Does it work? Is it therapeutic?
Jennifer Tracy: I don't know. Or it's crazy.
Cobie Smulders: It was a little. I was very passionate. I was very intense. But I wasn't allowed to express it in my household. I had a very strict father, and I won't go into my mom. But I didn't feel the freedom to really express myself in that way. And not because it wasn't really allowed, it just wasn't our vibe. It wasn't, we're not sitting around the kitchen table expressing ourselves. [crosstalk 00:04:18]
Jennifer Tracy: Right. It wasn't modeled for you.
Cobie Smulders: Or having opinions about anything. No.
Cobie Smulders: It was still a lovely childhood, but it just, I had all these feelings, and I think the way that I dealt with them was internally, and in a way created these fantasy-like situations. Which now, as an actor, I'm going oh! That's why I was interested in this, because it was an escape, and it was a way to pretend to be another person and to have another experience.
Cobie Smulders: But I think that's what cultivated it, subconsciously. I did theater in high school and then I was, I don't know why I was, I was modeling at the time.
Cobie Smulders: When you live in a small town you're like, how do I get out?
Jennifer Tracy: Sure. I did the same thing.
Cobie Smulders: What's my ticket out? Okay, my face. I'm gonna cash in on this face and just ride it for as long as I can.
Cobie Smulders: I was never successful, but I was able to go to Japan and Paris and Milan and New York. You did too, right?
Jennifer Tracy: I didn't go to all those places. In fact, I was signed up to go to Japan the summer of my 15th birthday. We'd gotten my work permits and everything and I had gotten this contract. Then my agent in Denver called me, Jay, I remember, a really sweet man. He said "you're not going to Japan because they shut it down, because they are having some child labor issues".
Jennifer Tracy: Later learned that they were starving these poor American teenage girls and working them 18 hours.
Cobie Smulders: You're lucky you did not go to Tokyo, can I tell you?
Jennifer Tracy: So you did it. Did you have a similar -
Cobie Smulders: I did! I mean I wasn't starved, but I was definitely, it was such a weird ... it was as similar thing. And I think anyone who's listening who has a teenage daughter, don't send them to Tokyo.
Cobie Smulders: I don't know how it is now. It's this weird thing where, I had a contract, which it seems like you did too.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. It was a lot of money.
Cobie Smulders: I had this work permit. They said we'll pay you $20,000 which I was like, I've just won the lottery!
Jennifer Tracy: I've made it, yeah, totally!
Cobie Smulders: I've just fucking made it. Twenty grand. Go to Tokyo, two months. I brought my older stepsister with me. We got there, it's so confusing culturally. Especially when you're 16, you just want to do the things you know. You're not really open to experiencing another culture. You're like, where's my hamburger? Why is everyone staring at me? You know, you're sort of in this awkward phase of your development.
Cobie Smulders: I got there and I mean I was just ... really, the loser in this situation was my stepsister, who stayed in this studio bedroom model's apartment.
Jennifer Tracy: With bunk beds, right?
Cobie Smulders: Not bunk beds, they were beds on the floor, which I think might be a step up from bunk beds. But still studio apartment, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cobie Smulders: In Roppongi, which was the club district of Tokyo, which it still is, I'm sure. And I would leave at 7 a.m. and do castings all day until 7 p.m. And she would stay in this putrid model's apartment all day.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, poor thing!
Cobie Smulders: We were trying not to spend any money, because they were giving us $200 a week each to live off of. And it was the only money we were technically making.
Cobie Smulders: But it was a weird experience. Not only from just ... I find modeling to be very strange anyway. But it was a very weird experience from an emotional ... I remember going into these rooms, you're in this business room, this conference room. There were eight Japanese business men, and you're standing there like "hey, what's up guys!". There's whoever your translator is, who's with you in all these things. He says in Japanese "this is Cobie. She is 5'8". She weighs 130 pounds. She is Canadian."
Cobie Smulders: I vividly remember they say, okay, show us three poses. And I just do that. I mean, I could do it but you can't hear it. But it was so weird, and you're so on the spot. You can't stand up and talk for yourself, because they're not gonna understand you. So, you can't advocate for yourself in any way. And what happened to us was ... because, it's a crock, the whole fucking thing, is that my contract was for two months, and I then read the fine print, which is you have to pay us back all of your flights, times two for me and my sister, your accommodation, every copy we make of a picture, your $200 a week that we give you. You have to pay all that back before you get anything. And also if you gain an inch on your waist or on your hips, we have the right to send you home.
Jennifer Tracy: I remember that.
Cobie Smulders: I think that's where the starvation thing came from. I mean, I was trying to save money, so I was living on Ramen, which I'm surprised I didn't gain a ton of weight. I was just eating just carbs, the cheapest carbs possible.
Cobie Smulders: They sent me home after six weeks, because I wasn't very successful, and they didn't pay me any money. So we had gotten maybe a grand out of saving the per diem. So we split $500 and just got out of there. We were so happy to get out of there.
Jennifer Tracy: I bet!
Cobie Smulders: We were so happy to just finally leave. I'm dying to go back to that country to see it from a different perspective, and see it and appreciate it, but I haven't had the opportunity yet.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow. And so you were 16. Did you continue modeling when you got back to Canada?
Cobie Smulders: I did. You would think that would tank it for me, but no. I'm a winner. I went back to Canada. I graduated high school. Literally within the next couple of days I moved to New York City, and was in New York City trying to model.
Cobie Smulders: That's when acting came in. I was meeting a lot of actors, I was going to a lot of theater, theater I could afford. I really stayed in New York because I had a boyfriend there for a while, and then I went to Paris for a while, and I went to Italy. When I was in Italy, I said I need to stop. Because it got a little ... I was partying so much.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cobie Smulders: Granted I'm 20 years old, you should be partying. You should be doing all this stuff.
Jennifer Tracy: But it's at a level in that realm that's a little scary.
Cobie Smulders: It's a little scary and you, you're not grounded in any way to anything. I'm not working towards any goal, any career goal here. It was a way to sort of vacation for free.
Cobie Smulders: So, I said I think I need to go back, go to university. I actually went back to Vancouver and enrolled at the University of Victoria to study marine biology. And then that summer -
Jennifer Tracy: No way! I thought I was gonna study marine biology. That's so funny.
Cobie Smulders: Oh you did?
Jennifer Tracy: I was going to go to a school in Florida and study marine biology, but I went to New York to be a model instead, and then I ended up studying communications later.
Cobie Smulders: I feel like there's a lot of women who are like: I just want to be a marine biologist!
Jennifer Tracy: I want to pet the dolphins!
Cobie Smulders: But I was more, and still am, I'm like, what's up with that coral polyp over there? It's so weird, and I'm very much detail person, so I'll go scuba diving and I'll just stare at algae for ten minutes. Wow! Look at this diverse ecosystem over here! I was set on that path, and then I just spent the summer ... I tried to get into a modeling agency in Vancouver because I'm broke. I need to make money, are there any opportunities here while I'm also working in restaurants and stuff.
Cobie Smulders: Through that agency I met a bunch of actors. I thought these guys are super cool. I wanna hang out with these guys. So through that I just said I'll do a year of this. And I just got so ... I just am so lucky, really. I think within that next year I did this really weird series. We shot it in Toronto, it was called Veritas The Quest. And dude, I was 19 years old. I was playing a 29 year old archeologist. Someone super smart.
Jennifer Tracy: That's really cool.
Cobie Smulders: Someone who didn't even go to college. Who was about to and said, nah! So, that was interesting.
Cobie Smulders: Did that for ... I think we did 13 episodes of that and then we did not get picked up. Then just kind of had a rough two years of just not working. Working in restaurants.
Jennifer Tracy: In Vancouver?
Cobie Smulders: In Vancouver. Working for my mom's business which involved me going to people's ... this is a weird story. I'm going off the path but it's worth it.
Jennifer Tracy: That's okay. Let's do it.
Cobie Smulders: My mom worked at this, it's a very small version of Geek Squad from Best Buy. It was her and two dudes in an office building. So I, because I couldn't afford my car at the time, took the bus an hour and a half to her office. Borrowed her car and drove to client houses, picking up their super heavy computer equipment. This is not just like the flappy laptops. It was intense. Monitors, putting them in the trunk of her Honda Civic and taking them back to my mom. And my mom paid me $5 an hour!
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my God! This is 2000 and something?
Cobie Smulders: This is 2001, 2002. I made it out of there, and then I started coming down here for pilot season, and then I booked How I Met Your Mother. I have been here in America ever since. In the land of America!
Jennifer Tracy: I remember we had the kids on a play date. Cobie and I know each other because our kids, her oldest daughter and my son, were in preschool together. I was at a play date at your house. I forget how it came up but Taran was telling me that ... he said "I had this ego about..." blah blah blah and I forget what the story was. It was about how you guys were together and then you broke up and blah, blah, blah. But when you first met each other he said that you said "Yeah, I booked this pilot" and he was on a show or booking a pilot and was like, "Ha! Yeah, good luck with that!" He was laughing at himself.
Cobie Smulders: Yes. It was actually a great pilot and it's where I met him for the first time. I met Taran because he and one of our best friends did this pilot together. It was with Bill Lawrence.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, wow!
Cobie Smulders: It was a great ... all the boxes were ticked, he was great in it, and it was so funny. So he had just shot that pilot, and I was gonna go shoot How I Met Your Mother, and yeah, he was, "well, it's gonna be really awkward when your show does not go and mine goes". I said "yeah, well you know, we'll figure it out, it's all good!"
Cobie Smulders: I was mostly excited that because of the show I got a work permit for six months.
Jennifer Tracy: Because of How I Met Your Mother?
Cobie Smulders: Yeah! Because I was, as a Canadian, only allowed to be here for a period of three months. But with this I could stay another six months, so that's what I was most jazzed about. I focus on the now.
Jennifer Tracy: I love it!
Cobie Smulders: I don't know if this show's gonna go but I'm allowed to be here for six months, so that's exciting!
Jennifer Tracy: And how old were you at that time? 24?
Cobie Smulders: I was 22.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my gosh!
Cobie Smulders: I know, I got on that show when I was 22 years old. Yeah. I know.
Jennifer Tracy: Good deal, girl. That's awesome.
Cobie Smulders: Great deal. It's a great deal. Now I'm at that age where I'm imparting wisdom. Whatever, I mean, I don't know how worthy that is but I ... a lot of people say, what do you say to someone who wants to become an actor and I think so much of it is luck. So much of it is just luck, but I also will say with that it's being prepared for that opportunity when someone taps you.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cobie Smulders: Which you have to constantly be prepared for. But so much of it is just luck.
Cobie Smulders: I remember with How I Met Your Mother, I had met, I think I met the casting director, and then she said you've got to meet Carter and Craig who are our creators. I went back and met them the next day. I wasn't supposed to be in town at that time or something, there was something that, if I hadn't met them at that time, it just wouldn't have happened.
Jennifer Tracy: Sure, it just all lined up. Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: So, I don't know the timeline, you're gonna tell me. You're working on the show, you're in love with Taran, you guys are together.
Cobie Smulders: Yes. Debatable, but yes. I'm trying to make a negative joke and I kind of stop myself because that's just a weird energy. No, I love my husband very much.
Jennifer Tracy: No, you guys are the cutest couple. I love you both very much.
Jennifer Tracy: At what point did you start to think about motherhood, or was the health thing that happened first?
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. So, Jen is talking about the health thing, because I had ovarian cancer when I was 25. Super fun. 25. Just when you're in the prime of your youth.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. That hit first and Taran and I had been together for, God, maybe two, coming on to three years at that point. We were really solid, which I'm very grateful for, to have a partner to go through that with me. I'm sorry to him, because he had to go through that with me. But I was grateful.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah, that hit. And I was diagnosed, I found, I can go through the whole thing so people can learn, and hopefully never have these symptoms. But if you do, I felt sort of abdominal pressure. It's weird. I went in to see my gynecologist in December. I said "I feel weird. Something's off." She gave me a physical. She said I don't feel anything, I feel like everything's okay. There's nothing that I should be knowing about genetically in your family, so I think you're good.
Cobie Smulders: By February, or even end of January, I would lay down and there was a lump. So, I remember I was shooting this movie, God, what was it called? It was called "Slammin' Salmon" and it was done by a lovely group of guys, The Broken Lizards. They're a comedy group.
Jennifer Tracy: Sounds familiar.
Cobie Smulders: They do the, oh shoot, what's the cop ... oh Super Troopers. They did Super Troopers. They just recently did Super Troopers 2.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Cobie Smulders: So, we were doing this wack-a-doodle comedy and in the middle of shooting I thought, I've got to get this checked out. And we were shooting crazy hours. So I went on a Sunday to a clinic and just said, doc, what do you think this is? Can I get an ultrasound? I got an ultrasound and they said you need to talk to your gynecologist today.
Jennifer Tracy: Were you out of town, were you on location or were you here?
Cobie Smulders: No, thankfully I was here. That would have been very difficult. But I was here, and went in to see my gynecologist. And even on the phone, she said, Cobie, maybe it's a cyst, maybe it's a fibroid. But this is nothing to worry about. You're 25 years old.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow!
Cobie Smulders: There's nothing to worry about. So, I went over and she gave me an ultrasound and she was just flummoxed. And then she recommended me to my oncologist.
Jennifer Tracy: She was flummoxed because she had been wrong?
Cobie Smulders: She had been wrong, and she had no idea how this could have happened to me.
Jennifer Tracy: Is that because statistically it's very unusual for such a young woman to get ovarian cancer?
Cobie Smulders: Yes. And also I think it was because she just had done a physical exam. I'll get into my thoughts and theories on it now that I'm on the other side, and have more education about it, but she, my gynecologist, recommended this oncologist who is the lady that is the reason I have children. Her name is Dr. Lana Cost. She's at Cedar Sinai. She said "we're doing surgery in a couple of days."
Cobie Smulders: So, from diagnosis, I was maybe on the table in a week, maybe a little more.
Jennifer Tracy: At that point, did you know what the surgery was going to be? Were you wondering if you were still going to have a uterus?
Cobie Smulders: No. I mean, I was wondering. I had no idea.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god.
Cobie Smulders: They said we're gonna try our best. But it was so ... the tumor that I had was the size of a cantaloupe, if we're using fruit euphemism speak, it was giant. So they couldn't tell on an ultrasound -
Jennifer Tracy: Where it ended and where the tissue would be clean.
Cobie Smulders: Exactly. So they had to cut me open. So, once they did it, and luckily, like I said, I had this amazing surgeon, they just had to remove the tumor and they had to remove half of the other ... so my right ovary was gone because it was now a massive tumor, and my left ovary, we had to take out about two thirds of it. So, yeah.
Cobie Smulders: I was very, very, very lucky and I was diagnosed from that, from examining the tissue that was removed, I was stage four. Which means the cancer has spread to other organs. It has spread to -
Jennifer Tracy: Lymph nodes.
Cobie Smulders: - the lymphatic system. But it was this, the cancer was diagnosed to be this borderline type of tumor, which, it obviously acts very aggressively once it's attached, and it usually will keep attacking the same organ. So I was very lucky in that respect where, this cancer had spread everywhere but it hasn't started feeding anywhere else.
Cobie Smulders: So, yeah. Got through that and then had my first child maybe a year after. Maybe not even six months.
Jennifer Tracy: But you had thought you weren't going to be able to have a child.
Cobie Smulders: Yes, exactly. So I was told that we would never be able to have kids naturally. So, forget about birth control. And our first child was born.
Jennifer Tracy: Surprise!
Cobie Smulders: Yeah! Which I am so grateful for. It was a very weird thing to go through mentally, emotionally. Because I was getting to this, okay, I will be the God mom. I will be the cool aunt. Maybe we'll adopt. I don't know.
Jennifer Tracy: And you were still so young that it was -
Cobie Smulders: So young. Totally. I'm not having kids for ten years anyway.
Cobie Smulders: So, I was kind of adjusting to this new reality of being a mom. It's not gonna be the way I thought it was gonna be. Which is, we're gonna get married, and then we'll have a couple years of just traveling, and then we'll have a baby, and maybe we'll have another one.
Cobie Smulders: I was getting comfortable with the idea that (a) it may not happen; (b) if it is going to happen it's going to have to be scientifically altered to make it happen for us. Or it's adoption or it's some other version. Which I was very open to. And then all of a sudden boom, I was pregnant. It was just ... it really kind of took me a long time. I mean, it took me nine months to get comfortable with the idea.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank God you had those nine months.
Cobie Smulders: I will say that Mother Nature is a very kind woman, because I think that the nine months of just preparing yourself is so nice. And much needed. But it was just nine months of emotionally, mentally, adapting to that.
Jennifer Tracy: And then when you guys had your first daughter, were you both living in Los Angeles? Because I know much of the time you guys have to live, I mean because you're both actors, you work.
Cobie Smulders: Yes, it was, and looking back ... of course, when you're able to look back on things you go, oh of course that's how it was supposed to be. When you're in it, you're just saying I don't know if this is right. This is crazy, there must be something better than what we're dealing with now. Upon reflection, it's the most perfect scenario, which is I'm living in Los Angeles, I'm on a show that's extremely accommodating.
Jennifer Tracy: Thank God.
Cobie Smulders: For a first time mom. Taran was in LA at the time. We had our first daughter, and then about year and a half later he got SNL and started doing the commute back and forth from New York.
Jennifer Tracy: That's when I met you guys, you were in the middle of this.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. It was fine. It totally was fine.
Jennifer Tracy: You guys made it work.
Cobie Smulders: We made it work, and we're both very independent people. More than that, we're not very dependent people. Which I think is more important to say. Because I think everybody is independently something.
Cobie Smulders: I love being in a partnership with Taran, but I don't feel like I need him to run my life the way I want to run it. I want him to be a part of my life, but I don't need him to help me make decisions and need him emotionally - of course, I love him and I want all those things from him, but it's not like, I don't feel less than without him. Does that make sense?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. You don't have to have it to function.
Cobie Smulders: Which I think mostly that comes from insecurity, right? I think when you're extremely dependent on a partner, you're looking to fill some void in yourself, which you should figure out.
Jennifer Tracy: Absolutely, yes.
Cobie Smulders: Because man, that's not good for nobody.
Jennifer Tracy: It doesn't work.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. So we were going back and forth, and then I was done with How I Met Your Mother, nine years later. Thank God for that show. God damn it I love that show. We moved to New York because Taran was still doing SNL and we had our second daughter in New York.
Jennifer Tracy: So then you're in New York. You're not on the show. You're in this different place in your life, and you're a mom of two girls. What was it like? And I know you did a bunch of other ... I know you don't stop working. You're not someone that just is like, uh!
Jennifer Tracy: I know you did some theater there, you did -
Cobie Smulders: Yeah! When I got off the show I certainly felt a need to do other things. I love that on How I Met Your Mother it wasn't the same thing every week. They enabled us to do other weird ... I was singing. I was a pop star in Canada. I was doing all these emotional arcs. My character on the show wasn't able to have kids, which is something I could kind of connect to. You know, they made it interesting.
Cobie Smulders: So I didn't feel like I was coming in and being, "Ralphie! Put your toys away!" every week. I was doing interesting, different things. But at the same time I was ready to do different roles.
Cobie Smulders: So I was able to shoot a couple of independent films. One of them was when I was ... both of them were when I was pregnant because I shot this movie called "Results" with Andrew Bujalski in Austin, and I was playing a personal trainer, but I was pregnant. I found out I was pregnant when I got the job. I said, listen, I am pregnant and I can almost 100% guaranty you I'm not going to show until I'm six months, because that's how I was with my first.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Cobie Smulders: Luckily he believed me, and luckily my child stayed in. Tucked up in my ribs or something.
Cobie Smulders: So I shot that, and then the second movie I was able to shoot was playing a pregnant teacher in an inner city school in Chicago, where one of my students gets pregnant at the same time as I do.
Cobie Smulders: I was able to do these projects, and again, synchronicity, right? They lined up okay with my personal life. That doesn't always happen, but it did for that period of time, and then we went to New York. Pushed out the baby. Yeah, pushed her out. And then, you're right.
Cobie Smulders: It's funny when you get to sit and talk about yourself, it's like oh! Shit, I've done a lot of stuff. You just so quickly forget about things, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cobie Smulders: Because you're so, you're on to the next, immediately.
Cobie Smulders: Two things happened which were two of the biggest challenges in my life. The first one was my daughter was six months old, and I was kind of getting out of the mommy fog. I was, let's go back to work! Let's do this thing! I was set to shoot two movies in the Atlanta area. In the South. One was in Atlanta, one was in, Charleston or something. In the South. Anyway, right before, the night before I leave to go shoot this independent, I break my leg.
Jennifer Tracy: Ahh! I remember this! I remember this! Oh yeah!
Cobie Smulders: I fully break my leg. It's such a dumb thing.
Jennifer Tracy: You did it here in LA?
Cobie Smulders: No, I did it in New York.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, you did it in New York. That's right.
Cobie Smulders: I rushed home from this event I had to go to so I could put my kids to bed and be there for bedtime, and I bust into my daughter's room and I pick up my eldest daughter and I swing her around saying "I'm here! I get to kiss you goodnight!" And I put her back into bed and she says "Do it to Daddy! Do it to Daddy!" So I say "Oh, okay!" And I pick up Taran and I fucking drop him on my leg. And I felt it. I felt a pop. Oh my God! I thought I had dislocated my knee. Okay, we're okay. Taran went out and he got one of those Ace Bandages and I did that. Put some ice on it. See how we feel in the morning. I'm leaving tomorrow morning, with my six month old, to go to the swamps in the South somewhere. I literally cannot remember exactly where we went. So I wake up and think, okay. It's feeling a little sore, but I'm walking, I'm putting weight on it. I'm walking so it can't be broken.
Cobie Smulders: So I take my older daughter to school. I come back, I pack up my baby in her car seat, and I go to pick her up and it shifts me to the right, and I go oh! Oh! My God! And in that moment I said my leg is fucking broken. But I am going to shoot this independent. Which, you know, they're so screwed it I don't show up. So I just have to go do it. So I call and I say listen, I think I just broke my leg. I'm coming. But I have to stop at an emergency room when I get off the plane.
Cobie Smulders: The hardest part of this whole thing was that I get to the airport. I've got my Baby Bjorn on. I've got the bags. I get to the airport, and I say "hi, I need a wheelchair". Usually I'm so stubborn I say let's just do this, I'm fine. But I know that this leg is broken now. Something is very wrong by this point. And I say I need a wheelchair. They say "you can't ride in a wheelchair, you have a baby. We can't legally put you in a wheelchair." So I say okay. They say, "but after you go through security, we'll have that Rover, you know, that guy down there, waiting for you." I say, "okay. Amazing. Thank you so much". So I get through security. I'm standing there. There's no Rover. I don't know if anyone's been in the fucking Delta Terminal of a JFK, I get PTSD when I go to this section of the airport. I can't go back. I won't go back to this place.
Cobie Smulders: I'm looking around, there's just duty free everywhere. Then I think, I have to start walking. I'm not exaggerating. It was half a mile. My gate was the very last. I've done this walk since, and it wasn't like I was in pain, or it just felt like a greater distance than it was. It's a very fucking long way. Even if you're just normally walking.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cobie Smulders: So I start walking and now it's really bad. I pull over and I go to the Delta desk and I say "Can I get a wheelchair or the Rover?" And they say it will take 30 minutes. I say "well, my flight is leaving". So I walk this mile, I get on the plane, I land in Charleston or wherever we were. My nanny meets me at the airport. I immediately start crying because there is somebody finally helping me. That's my trigger. You're gonna help me? What?
Jennifer Tracy: Start to fall apart.
Cobie Smulders: Start bawling. We immediately go to this doctor, this orthopedic surgeon who gives me an x-ray and says "your leg is broken. You have to be on crutches for eight weeks."
Jennifer Tracy: You can't shoot a movie.
Cobie Smulders: Well, I ended up shooting this movie. They wrote into the script that I just had crutches. Everyone was like, that was such an interesting choice. It was a mandatory decision! For everyone involved on this project.
Cobie Smulders: But then I had to go from there to shoot a different project. This HBO movie on Anita Hill which was so fascinating and great. And I was, I cannot. I'm barely getting through this. I can't do it. I was so upset about that.
Cobie Smulders: It was actually funny because shooting that movie was okay in terms of managing. I hope nobody ever has to go through this being on crutches and not being able to pick up. You can't get up in the middle of the night and go over and pick her up and bring her into bed with you. You can't do anything. It was horrible.
Cobie Smulders: But my wonderful nanny at the time was there with me, and she did everything. And when I was at work, there were all these sweet young kids and it was their first movie so, they were helping me out. But when I went home is when I just went, I can't be a mom. I can't nurture my child. I can't be alone in my house. That was such a challenge. That was darker than cancer for me.
Jennifer Tracy: Interesting.
Cobie Smulders: Which is really interesting.
Jennifer Tracy: That's saying something.
Cobie Smulders: Because it was, you're totally helpless. And I don't like feeling that way.
Cobie Smulders: With cancer, at least I could do stuff.
Jennifer Tracy: Well and you're helpless, and you're responsible for this other being's wellness and safety.
Cobie Smulders: Yes! It was horrible. And then from that, another challenge came after.
Cobie Smulders: Am I being boring or is this okay?
Jennifer Tracy: Are you kidding me? You're perfection! Don't stop!
Cobie Smulders: I'm monologuing over here.
Jennifer Tracy: You're right on target.
Cobie Smulders: Okay. The next challenge was, I'm still on crutches and I get this call from agents or whatever, managers, and they say Edward Zwick wants to meet you. They're shooting this new action movie with Tom Cruise, and he'd love to talk to you about it. I was like, sure!
Cobie Smulders: I crutch my way over to Edward Zwick's to try to get an action movie!
Jennifer Tracy: And you booked it!
Cobie Smulders: Well. Inevitably. Not inevitably, eventually I did. I met with Ed. He's like, let's put something on tape. And I came back and I put something on tape and they're "do you want to go fly down and meet Tom Cruise?" And the whole time I'm thinking, I'm not going to do this movie. I'm on crutches! I can't do this movie.
Cobie Smulders: I'm finally off crutches by the time I fly to Florida to meet with Tom. It's lovely, it's great, I get the part. And then I have to start training for six weeks. And I'm in the weakest shape. I've been, I might have super, I don't know what muscles are the crutches muscles, the outer limbs of your body. The outer arms, your shoulders, I don't know quite what, but the whole movie that I had to do was running. Just running, running, running. And I was, my leg was atrophied.
Jennifer Tracy: Of course, sure. So you're starting from scratch.
Cobie Smulders: So I'm starting from scratch. We go to New Orleans for six months to shoot this movie. I still have this infant guys! Still have this infant who's now eight months old. Is living with me in New Orleans. The other daughter is in New York with Taran. I mean, it was just chaos. And I really, that was the final nail in the coffin of trying to do it all.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cobie Smulders: I said it's not worth it. It's affecting my health. I even literally remember, right before I left, maybe a week, before I broke my leg, I said something subconsciously to myself. I said to myself I hope something happens and something falls apart and I can't do this. But what happened was, something did happen. And I made it more challenging for myself. Now, upon reflection, what I should have done was, leg's broken. I cannot do your movie guys. I have a fucking six month old baby. I'm not coming. But it is my default to go above and beyond for other people, but not for myself. That is a fault I had to sort of -
Jennifer Tracy: You didn't want to disappoint them, or?
Cobie Smulders: I didn't want to disappoint them. I am glad that I did it. I had a lot of fun and I made really great friends. Yeah. I just didn't want to disappoint them. I knew that they were gonna be really screwed if I didn't show up. They would have had to stop production for, I don't know what they would have had to do. It would have been really terrible.
Cobie Smulders: I knew that that was really going to be a horrible thing for them to figure out. It's not my fault. It happened. You know what I mean? But to hold that guilt, I couldn't handle holding that guilt. Which is something else I had to confront.
Cobie Smulders: So now it's like, it's really interesting talking about this stuff. This is stuff I haven't thought about for a long time. But that was really the end of ... I can't do it all.
Cobie Smulders: There was something that I read, I don't know if I read or someone was just talking about it, that there are four things in your life and you can only do three of them. One is always being sacrificed. Health, career, relationship or friendships. And three of those is the max that you can do, so one of those things is always -
Jennifer Tracy: Suffering a little bit.
Cobie Smulders: - sort of, yeah, on the outskirts, and is not getting the attention it deserves.
Cobie Smulders: Whenever I think about that I go yeah, I haven't talked to my friends in so long. You know, or like God, how's Taran doing? Do you know what I mean? Or I break my fucking leg. Or I get sick. Or whatever it is.
Cobie Smulders: That was something that stuck with me. I can't remember where I read it, but it was very true. You have to be conscious of priority. I think you and I are now both moms, and that's the priority right now. Maybe when they're off at college, me and my husband are gonna be traveling around the world or something. I don't know, but it's right now that is the focus.
Jennifer Tracy: Number one, yeah. Wow!
Jennifer Tracy: So you kind of had this turning point for yourself. As a mom, as a woman, as a human, and then you came back to New York.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: And what were the next steps for you? Was Taran still on SNL at that time?
Cobie Smulders: Yeah, when I came back from New Orleans he was finishing up his last year. So I came back and was in New York. This movie had happened. And then, I think ... I'm confused by the time line of things right now.
Cobie Smulders: I got to do a play in New York!
Jennifer Tracy: Right. I remember -
Cobie Smulders: Which was a huge thing, but I don't think it happened right after that. I think there was something in between that I can't quite remember right now. Yeah. I came back. The whole time I'm in New York City, I have to, my greatest dream as a performer was to be on stage. On Broadway. I had so many auditions. So many, begging. I was trying so hard. It was this very interesting thing of perception. I don't know if it was the theater community that was like, she's a sitcom actress. She's not gonna be good on stage.
Cobie Smulders: I don't know what it was, but it was so hard for me to be taken seriously maybe, or, I don't know. But finally I got to audition for this play, Present Laughter.
Cobie Smulders: It was really weird because it was shooting ... oh that's what happened. I shot the first season of this Netflix show, Friends From College. So we're in New York, shooting this show, it's going great, having a great time. Then I get this audition and I'm just so stoked about it. I get the audition. I'm studying massive amounts of lines. Whenever you do theater or play auditions, it's just twenty pages of just so much dialog. As it should be, because it's a play and you should know your shit. But, I'm learning all this stuff and I'm learning it. And this is the night of the election.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh my god.
Cobie Smulders: This is the night of fucking, we think, Hillary Clinton. First woman president! We're in New York City going this is such an amazing night! This is gonna be a historic moment.
Jennifer Tracy: I flew into New York that next day.
Cobie Smulders: Oh you did!
Jennifer Tracy: And everybody was walking around New York City with their chests and their heads hanging low. Oh my god.
Cobie Smulders: It was fascinating, because there's all this stuff going on, but I have to nail this. This is my dream. This is my dream.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cobie Smulders: I'm running these lines, the election is going towards Donald Trump, and I can't even go there. I can't even go there. I remember going to bed that night, at an early-ish hour, at 10. And Taran says I have to stay up and see. They're still calculating votes in fucking Florida or something. And I said I have to go to bed. I'm going to bed. And woke up and he had won and, I still, I'm not gonna go to that place. And I went into that audition. We spent the first 20 minutes just talking about it. It was, in fact, the greatest time to audition because if you're able to kind of keep it together and you're professional, you're able to really do this. Then it's great.
Cobie Smulders: So we did this wonderful six week run of this play, and it was just magic. It was so much fun.
Cobie Smulders: That was a big accomplishment. I felt, for the very first time, quite satiated.
Cobie Smulders: I am usually, when I'm half way through a job I'm going, what's next? What am I doing next?
Cobie Smulders: During this, I was happy to just chill out for a while after that, so it was really great.
Jennifer Tracy: That's so awesome. What was the best part of it, being in that play? Getting to go to the theater everyday?
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. It was really the best fit for my life because it was, first of all, it's such a weird little thing. The play starts at 8:00, it's done by 11:00. Some nights you're doing a 7:00 show, so you're home by 10:00.
Cobie Smulders: Obviously, some nights we would go out after or whatever, but most of the time I would be able to get a seven hour nights sleep. Get up with the kids, take one kid to school, come home, baby naps, you're napping. And then you get up and you go to the theater at night. You get to pick up from school, go to the theater at night.
Cobie Smulders: It's so creatively fulfilling where, I think that if you are on set, every day is not like, wow! That was a great moment!
Jennifer Tracy: Right. You're sitting around and waiting a lot.
Cobie Smulders: You're trying to get your scenes. You're trying to get the work done. You're trying to get exterior shots of you walking down the street, or whatever it's gonna be. It's not always creatively fulfilling. But this was every night. You didn't know what it was gonna be, and it was this interesting sort of rhythm of so excited, I can't believe this play is happening. I'm on stage. I'm doing a British accent. Do I know all my lines? Am I hitting all the things they told me to hit? Am I blocking?
Cobie Smulders: So, it's very exciting. Then it comes out. Then it's successful. People review it well. We're great! We're off to the races. And then this weird thing happens. And I don't want to generalize it, because everybody I'm sure has a different experience, but in the middle of it you hit this place, which for me was, I don't know what I'm doing. I don't think I'm going to remember any of my lines!
Cobie Smulders: At this point, you know your lines. At this point -
Jennifer Tracy: It's part of you.
Cobie Smulders: - it's become so familiar. But there is this ... I hit this place of I don't know what I'm after here. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm gonna totally freeze on stage. I only kind of lost it once. And I just made something else up.
Jennifer Tracy: And nobody noticed.
Cobie Smulders: And because I was working with Kevin Klein, you just said something else and we found our way back.
Cobie Smulders: But it was terrifying for, I want to say, two weeks. And then it kind of came back. And then it was so fun for the rest of it. Then I had maybe four weeks left. And it was wonderful. Yeah.
Cobie Smulders: But I miss it. And the theater community is not as big out here, but I would love to get back on stage. The thing about me being in New York City and desperately wanting to do a play is because I knew I was only gonna be there for three years. I can't pick up my family and move to New York to do a play for six to eight months and then move back. It's just, the way our life is now, our kids are too old.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah, in school. Once they're in elementary school it's a whole different deal.
Cobie Smulders: When they have friendships and they have, they're going through their own.
Jennifer Tracy: All of it, yeah.
Cobie Smulders: You can't just pick them up and take them anywhere anymore.
Jennifer Tracy: So, you guys are back in LA. I'm so happy!
Cobie Smulders: California! I could have done so many things that were actually, California! That would have made sense but I just made my own.
Jennifer Tracy: I like that you made your own.
Cobie Smulders: California!
Jennifer Tracy: I heard in your rendition two or three different songs. There was a Beach Boys in there. Then there was: California!
Cobie Smulders: California!
Jennifer Tracy: Then there was even a little LL Cool J. There was a lot. It was layered. And had depth.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. Okay cool. Got it. Great.
Jennifer Tracy: I want to ask you a couple more questions that I've been thinking about while you were talking, and just also just to say that I adore you!
Cobie Smulders: Oh, you're so sweet. I adore you.
Jennifer Tracy: I just adore you as a person. You're always so welcoming and warm, and I really appreciate that about you.
Cobie Smulders: Thank you!
Jennifer Tracy: And also one time someone told us that we look like sisters, and I'm taking that straight to the bank.
Cobie Smulders: I'm taking that to the bank! I just deposited that in my self-esteem, so thank you for that!
Cobie Smulders: I'm looking at you right now and you look like Linda Evangelista.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh, especially with my short hair, a lot of people say that. Thank you.
Cobie Smulders: Who is also Canadian.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh! I don't know that!
Cobie Smulders: Yes. So maybe you were, in another life, a Canadian.
Jennifer Tracy: Eh?!
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. Yaay!
Jennifer Tracy: I wanted to ask you about being a woman in Hollywood and in the arts, have you seen, since you started doing this. When you were a teenager, really, as a model. Have you seen a change with all the things that are happening now? Obviously, the Me Too movement, the gender equality happening, the 50% Pledge. Am I saying that right, the 50% Pledge? I think I am. Where they're trying to hire more female, at least 50% of crew, is female.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Are you seeing that change? Have you seen it change over time?
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. Huge. I would say, as you're talking, I'm thinking of it in two ways, which is personally, and then just surveying it as it's happening.
Cobie Smulders: I think it is, personally, we just said I started How I Met Your Mother when I was 22. I have grown up. A lot. And have learned. Had to advocate for myself. Knowing what I want and knowing what I'm good at, and how to say that I'm good at these things. And have confidence in that. Which took me a long time, and still working on, obviously.
Cobie Smulders: So, I think in terms of the female movement, I have sort of grown with that. I am really benefiting from this current situation which I do think there has been a huge stride. Again, when I think from a personal level, just in conversations! Being listened to more. Being taken more seriously, being let into rooms that I wasn't allowed to be in before. And again, I don't know if that's how it is now, people are trying to be more inclusive. Or, if that is just because of my resume, I am entitled to walk through these doors now. I don't know what that is.
Jennifer Tracy: Probably both I would guess.
Cobie Smulders: Probably both.
Cobie Smulders: But I will say, from somebody whose grown up watching TV, being on a major television show, and looking at TV now, where there is a member of each cast that is different, you get to see different faces on TV. You get to, even this, my friend Gloria Calderón Kellett, she show-runs One Day At A Time. This is a show where the teenage daughter has come out on television. This season they had her losing her virginity, this teenage daughter losing her virginity to another girl. And dealing with not only, should we be doing this? But they're girls! And they're dealing with the same stuff that a boy and girl would be, that would be on a sitcom ten years ago. But these are two girls, and they're dealing with the same stuff, and it's normalizing that.
Cobie Smulders: I think that one of the greatest gifts of this industry is being able to reach the world and going, this is normal. If these two people are talking about gay sex, that's normal. It's totally normal to talk about that. We don't have to pretend that it's taboo. We don't have to hide these topics. We don't have to be embarrassed by them. We don't have to think that they're wrong. I think that that is one of the greatest gifts that we can give back to the world, as actors, as writers, as producers, as directors. I think that is sort of what our meaning is.
Cobie Smulders: You know, it's always, I just became an actor so I can make people laugh. Or I want to make people feel.
Cobie Smulders: No. It is this weird where you are pop culture. You are on things that become pop culture. What can you sprinkle in there, when you can. And now we're seeing that you're not even having to sprinkle things anymore, you're just gonna talk about them. And you're just gonna see couples that look different from couples that were on TV ten years ago. That is one of the greatest changes.
Cobie Smulders: And I think that's because there has been ... I mean, thank God for Donald Trump. That's what I say. I think that this is the greatest thing to come out of this presidency.
Jennifer Tracy: It's true. He's spurned on a lot of this reaction.
Cobie Smulders: Having us look at, and me looking at myself, and us all looking at, when there is so much negativity happening.
Jennifer Tracy: And misogyny and, yeah.
Cobie Smulders: You look at all of these men who have gone down because you can't do that shit anymore. You can't do that shit anymore because you're powerful. And I'm really grateful to these women that have come forward and talked about it. And women who continue to come forward to talk about it, because it's just, we just have to ... I'm thinking right now, and again, I think it's because I'm 36 which isn't too old, but you're old enough where you're going, what's the point? What can I be doing? And especially now.
Jennifer Tracy: Absolutely.
Cobie Smulders: What good can I be putting out there? There's so much negativity. What can I do? What candle can I light to shine a little bit of good?
Cobie Smulders: Minimum? Being a good mom. Okay? Putting out good human beings who are gonna have empathy. Who are gonna treat others with respect. Who are gonna advocate for themselves. Who are gonna be strong women. Okay?
Cobie Smulders: And then it's community. I'm working a lot with this great organization, I'm gonna plug it right now. It's called Save the Children. Working in America and all across the world. And then it's like through work, choosing projects that I hope can have some impact. Obviously, I don't have full control over my next paycheck and where that's gonna come from.
Cobie Smulders: I tend to get these roles, and I don't know, because I don't really consider myself like a tough broad. I'm constantly apologizing. I apologize too much. That's my Canadianess. But I got to play Maria Hell in all the Avengers movies and I got to play Susan Turner in the Tom Cruise movies, an ex-military. And I like portraying women as, not only women who are tough, but also that they're doing the same jobs that men do. It's all about visuals, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cobie Smulders: It really is a fascinating thing, and I don't watch a lot of TV now unfortunately, but whenever I tune back in, like I saw my friends show, is this what's on TV right now? Are we just straight up talking about this now? That is so incredible.
Jennifer Tracy: It's huge growth, no, it's huge growth.
Cobie Smulders: It's huge. I remember we were on How I Met Your Mother, on CBS. We were talking about drugs. We would do all these sneaky tricks because it was an 8:00 show on a Monday night. Kids were watching so we would have to be sneaky and we couldn't do certain things. It was just so much more ... I don't know. Control isn't the right word but it was just -
Jennifer Tracy: Censored, a little bit?
Cobie Smulders: - it was seen from one perspective. And now I think people are going, there's not just one perspective.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Yeah.
Cobie Smulders: And that's exciting.
Jennifer Tracy: As you're talking, I'm flashing to driving my son to the bus stop the other day. Because you're talking about messaging. What's the messaging that we're giving to our young girls and boys? We live in LA. I live in West Hollywood, and there's a lot of billboards. It's kind of like Vegas over there.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah, right, yeah. Totally.
Jennifer Tracy: There's this billboard for Wet Republic, which is a pool in Las Vegas, at a hotel, right?
Cobie Smulders: Were there bikinis?
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
Cobie Smulders: Shocking!
Jennifer Tracy: And they always have these billboards that don't really make sense, and it's so interesting to hear what he thinks of them. And he says about this one, on one side of the billboard there are girls in bikinis popping champagne bottles, and the other side they're behind an army tank that's shooting out bottles. I think it's shooting out bottles of champagne, I'm not sure.
Cobie Smulders: From the tank? The tank is shooting out bottles of champagne?
Jennifer Tracy: I think so. I think so. I might be making that part up. But they are in an army tank. And my son is a history buff. He's obsessed with World War II, World War I. He's really into learning and now reading about it. He has all the army toys and all this. He's nine and a half.
Jennifer Tracy: He says "why are they wearing bikinis in the tank? That's not smart. That doesn't make sense. What is that?" Well, it's an advertisement for a pool. He says, "why do they have a tank in a pool?"
Jennifer Tracy: To him, it's just so, he can't ... he understands that they're being sexualized, because we talk about that. But it's just, "well, that's stupid".
Cobie Smulders: That makes zero sense.
Jennifer Tracy: I said I think they're marketing to men, 17 to 34, who want to see women in birkinis. Birkinis! Bikinis.
Cobie Smulders: Birkinis would be much more comfortable I think.
Jennifer Tracy: Totally!
Cobie Smulders: I think they would be like animal hair, that's in my mind. And they're wearing Birkenstocks. So it's actually a little -
Jennifer Tracy: Or a burka!
Cobie Smulders: Or a burka! Much better. I'd take that over the bikini.
Jennifer Tracy: So, I said they're probably marketing to men who want to see, I'm guessing, women in bikinis and men stuff. I don't know. And he was just, that's stupid.
Cobie Smulders: That's wonderful to hear.
Jennifer Tracy: But that's the messaging.
Cobie Smulders: I'm surprised that's still on a billboard actually. I'm surprised that that is still -
Jennifer Tracy: Really sad and offensive. I always think of those young girls that are the models. Because I remember, I was never up for that kind of job, but I just remember being in New York and seeing what you're talking about. That pressure of, fit yourself into this box and be like this and don't eat that. And uh! I just was suffocating over time. It just wasn't me.
Jennifer Tracy: I didn't last in New York for very long. I was there for, I think three months, and then I was begging to go back to college because I just couldn't handle it. This is not me.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: I think we've come to the time where I'm going to ask you my three questions.
Cobie Smulders: Lightning round!
Jennifer Tracy: Lightning round.
Cobie Smulders: Lightning round! Lightning round! Lightning round! Lightning round!
Jennifer Tracy: So three questions and then we'll go into the silly fun questions.
Jennifer Tracy: What do you think about, Cobie, when you hear the word MILF?
Cobie Smulders: A Mom I'd Like to Fuck.
Jennifer Tracy: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. Is that from an American Pie movie?
Jennifer Tracy: Okay, this is such a great question!
Cobie Smulders: Is that its' origin?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes and no. Because I had to really kind of delve into this. That is the first time it was in pop culture that wasn't porn. But it is actually a porn genre.
Cobie Smulders: Oh! Okay.
Jennifer Tracy: That's where it became -
Cobie Smulders: Like people are into that and you can just google that and that's a thing.
Jennifer Tracy: - its name. Yes. Yes.
Cobie Smulders: Wow.
Jennifer Tracy: And it's very interesting because on my Instagram, the podcast Instagram, sometimes I'll get tagged on an Instagram photo that's ... it's not quite porn because they're on Instagram so they have to be careful about it. But there is so much of it out there.
Jennifer Tracy: Some people, total strangers will DM me, and you can see the request and it will just be some dude with no name on his thing, and a picture of his eye, and it says DZ578910 or whatever, and "send nudes" it says.
Cobie Smulders: Send nudes?!
Jennifer Tracy: Send nudes! And I'm like, are you, did you read, are you getting...? It's probably stabbing in the dark, you know, let me send this to 100 women and see if I can get something back.
Cobie Smulders: Well, that's certainly something. The Graduate. It's been something that's been sexualized for a long time. And I don't know ... I'm not surprised that it is something that is in pornography but I'm surprised that it's such a huge thing, if it's its own thing.
Cobie Smulders: I remember it, MILF to me is more like a cougar ... there was a movement, I don't know when in happened, where older women who had teenage sons were vying on their teenage son's friends and that became a whole thing.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cobie Smulders: But I'm sure it's something that's been in history as well.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh yeah. Of course. I mean, I love that you mention The Graduate. That's such a classic.
Cobie Smulders: It is such a classic. She's a classic MILF.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. She's a classic MILF.
Cobie Smulders: But that is sadly the first thing. I mean sadly because, I like the way you're doing it. "Mom I'd Like to Follow". It's more -
Jennifer Tracy: I just want to reclaim it and make it, yeah. Because I do also think for me, part of my journey was, I didn't feel like I could or even wanted to be sexy or sexual after I had my son. Because I struggled with postpartum, and I was alone with him.
Jennifer Tracy: That thing that you felt after you finished the movie, and you were on the crutches and you came home, and you couldn't lift up your baby? That was, for me, that describes my postpartum for two years after he was born. Every day felt like that to me. In a way. I wasn't on crutches, so I wasn't handicapped in that way, but emotionally, I just felt so trapped and so tortured.
Jennifer Tracy: So anyway, once I started to reclaim my sexuality, and was, oh wait. I'm not a throw away because I'm forty and sexual and a woman. So, let's talk about that.
Cobie Smulders: Can I, I know we're in the lightning round section, but I want to speak to something that I've been thinking about a lot. Because I've been talking a lot about ovarian cancer lately and spreading awareness about it, and making women just advocate for themselves more, in terms of to their doctors and stuff. I've been thinking a lot about, I'm trying to think the right way to say it but, the way that we teach our girls about, even about puberty. About menstruation. About ... I mean, I remember it was, hide your tampons, have a little secret pouch in your backpack and you put your tampons in there, and no one's supposed to know. Hide your birth control pills. Keep that ... why are we hiding everything? The reason we're having periods is so the human race can fucking make more babies.
Cobie Smulders: It's the same thing, speaking to this. Why do you, after having a baby, or why do you need to have a baby? Some women go if I'm not a mother, then what kind of woman am I? Why do we have to associate these things with our worth?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cobie Smulders: And obviously there's history. That used to be what we did. That's it. That was our function. But now we're coming in to a place where we're finally being ... we're allowed to do that because people are providing us support. If you can have maternity leave. If you can do this stuff.
Cobie Smulders: But it's an interesting thing. There's a stigma. I don't know where that comes, specifically to you, in terms of oh, I'm not sexual anymore. I've had my baby. I don't need to have sex anymore because I already made a baby. I don't know where these stigmas come from, but they are stigmas. And I don't know if that's through, in our society? I don't know -
Jennifer Tracy: I think its through a lot. I think it's through, like you were saying earlier, about TV shows and pop culture and stories and books.
Jennifer Tracy: For me, there used to be this sort of June Cleaver idea of, oh, well June Cleaver's not having sex. She's sleeping in her twin bed. Once you become a mom, it's just not proper for you to be sexual. You can't let your -
Cobie Smulders: Or you're a MILF.
Jennifer Tracy: Right. It's either or.
Cobie Smulders: It's the extremes, right? There's no fucking middle ground.
Jennifer Tracy: You're a virgin or a whore. You can't be both.
Cobie Smulders: Yes.
Jennifer Tracy: And the fact is, we're all both. We're all the virgin, the whore, the Lilith, the crone, that's all mixed in. And that's just all part of the fluidity of being feminine. So that, too.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: And I also, like you were saying about the menstrual, my son, since he understood anything, he knows when I'm on my period. He knows what it is. He knows what a tampon is. In fact, we have this joke, he'll be in my purse and he'll go "look! A chocolate bar!" And he pulls out the tampon. He thinks that's hilarious.
Jennifer Tracy: So there's no eww, a tampon! For me that's important, to teach our boys.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. There was an interesting thing that just happened at my kid's school, which was we're going to do the puberty tuck this year, and we don't really. Later in the year bring out tampons, and we've split the groups up before into girls and boys, and all the parents were like no! Don't split them up! Don't make it seem like it's a secret, hidden thing.
Cobie Smulders: The girls are gonna be embarrassed no matter what. They're gonna be so, so humiliated, as soon as a tampon comes out. Don't worry about that. But to have the boys also see it and go, oh, this is just a thing that has to happen guys.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Absolutely.
Cobie Smulders: This is just a thing that we're gonna be doing every month and no big deal.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cobie Smulders: And I think it's starting there and equalizing it in a way.
Cobie Smulders: Same with going back to ovarian cancer. I think a lot of women are embarrassed to go, it hurts when I have sex. I feel bloated. And it's also so tied in with menstrual symptoms, in terms of bloating, cramping, pressure, all of that stuff is, well, it's just my period or whatever.
Jennifer Tracy: Sure.
Cobie Smulders: Do you know that, here's a thing that really blew my mind. Only until recently was ovarian cancer diagnosed as ovarian cancer, and uterine cancer, and cervical cancer. It was maybe something like 15 years ago. Before then, it was just stomach cancer.
Jennifer Tracy: You're kidding!
Cobie Smulders: They wouldn't even attach it to the female organs. They just said, oh, it's stomach cancer.
Jennifer Tracy: Because they didn't want to say uterus, ovary, or something?
Cobie Smulders: Well, I don't know if they didn't want to say, I don't quite know. But it's something that ... I sat with this group of women who either had gone through cancers or had someone very close to them who had been affected. Somebody's mom had stomach cancer, but it was actually ovarian cancer.
Jennifer Tracy: Wow!
Cobie Smulders: So now we're getting to this place of genetics, right? Where you can have these certain genes and be predisposed for breast, ovarian, whatever. And there's a majority of women who weren't even given the correct diagnosis, and I don't know why. I mean, that's awhile ago. I don't know exactly when they said no, this isn't stomach, this is ovarian. Maybe it was longer than 15 years ago, but that was fascinating that just this last generation -
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cobie Smulders: - that this last generation of moms were like, it's stomach cancer. So, not to know that history is really detrimental to this one and is informed I think by this stigma.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Yes. Okay, next question.
Cobie Smulders: Sorry, that was very long.
Jennifer Tracy: No, no, no! No apologies. What is something you've changed your mind about recently?
Cobie Smulders: I don't know if this is an answer. The correct ... an answer to that question. But it's speaking to me about something else that I ... it's something that I've been working on, but.
Jennifer Tracy: What's so interesting Cobie is that, I ask all these questions of every guest that's ever been on the show. You and the last three guests that I've interviewed in the last couple of weeks could not answer that question.
Cobie Smulders: Really! Well I'm happy that I'm not alone because I don't ... there's nothing that I'm ... I consider myself pretty open minded so there's nothing that I've flipped on. I've been thinking a lot about perception.
Cobie Smulders: Something recently happened to me. Somebody confronted me with something. And it spun me out so much because they confronted me with something that I didn't think was true about myself. And I went, whoa! Whoa! Whoa! If they think that I'm this, am I that?
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Cobie Smulders: Because that's her, that's their perception of me and my actions, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Cobie Smulders: In reality, I think they were wrong. But it really made me go, I have to be a little more ... and it's also speaking to what's happening in the world ... I have to know my facts more. And I have to watch myself a little more carefully, which I haven't done on this podcast. I don't know what I've been saying. I'm just saying a lot of different things.
Jennifer Tracy: That's not the point of the podcast. No.
Cobie Smulders: You can just say whatever you want!
Cobie Smulders: But it was sort of a re-think, a recalibrating of, oh! I think I need to ... I'm gonna kind of go off on a tangent again which I keep doing with you, because I like you so much, I like talking to you so much. So you can edit all this shit out if you want.
Cobie Smulders: I think it's speaking to how wrapped up you get in yourself, even more now. Even more with social media and Instagram and you're, you know ... I was listening to this amazing talk where it was, back in the day. And maybe still for some people it is, but it would be, these are the ten commandments. This is what the king and the queen say you have to do. This is what the government and the president says so you should do this, right?
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cobie Smulders: And that is kind of like in a gray area now. So what is in its place is, well, I just felt that way. Well, this is my feeling on that. I'm entitled to act this way because I listen to my gut.
Cobie Smulders: And it's a really interesting time of ... I totally believe in instincts, and you've got to listen to your gut. But you also have to take in the world around you and facts.
Jennifer Tracy: And other people can have feelings -
Cobie Smulders: Because that's just a chemical reaction in your brain, right? That's what's telling you to do that.
Cobie Smulders: So it's a society of me and what I think is right. And I'm just doing what I think is right. Okay? So I went into this ... I spun out a little and I said am I not taking in what's going on around me? Am I not who I think I am to some people? Right? Because I think I know who I am, but am I not, you can only have so much time for everybody and be your best self with a certain amount of people but, am I not? I don't know. It made me spin out a little bit. And who am I to that person?
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cobie Smulders: It was really weird and it kind of had to make me -
Jennifer Tracy: Did you come back around to yourself and realize -
Cobie Smulders: I came back around. I came back around. But it took me a while and it took me touching with other people that knew me really well, to go, do I do this to you? Am I this way to you? And they're like, what are you fucking talking about?
Cobie Smulders: But it was this weird moment. Because I think as moms we get in this bubble sometimes, and then all of a sudden you're like, I haven't looked in the mirror in about four days, nor have I showered, nor have I had a moment to myself.
Cobie Smulders: So your perception of yourself is so attached to these other beings and what they need and how you're helping them.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah.
Cobie Smulders: I remember when I was shooting this past season for Friends From College, I had to go to New York, and I was traveling back and forth for three months. I had a lot of time to myself. And it was this weird moment of ... Oh my God ... first of all it was, oh my God. Yaay! I'm by myself in New York! I get to see my friends! I get to stay out late! I get to live this life!
Cobie Smulders: But then it was, it was my identity. That's what I'm trying to say. My identity is so attached to being a mother, which is also your day to day routine. So when it shifts, it's weird. It's weird.
Cobie Smulders: That was not an answer to your question at all, but I haven't really changed my mind about anything.
Jennifer Tracy: It was such a good attempt! It was fabulous.
Cobie Smulders: Hopefully that was interesting to somebody.
Jennifer Tracy: How do you define success?
Cobie Smulders: I think to me being successful is having balance. Yeah. Because I think that the go to answer is, success is always, I feel, to me, defined by career. But that is what I have learned, is whatever that success ... whatever I have defined a success, I will never attain it. Because I will do a play on Broadway and be like, yeah but I still haven't done this.
Jennifer Tracy: Right.
Cobie Smulders: And I'm sure there are actors and actresses and producers in my place who've won an Oscar and they're like, but then what's next?
Jennifer Tracy: Always. Always.
Cobie Smulders: I don't know what the penultimate thing is -
Jennifer Tracy: Yes.
Cobie Smulders: - that's gonna define success in that. So I think it's just being happy and finding that. I'll find days where I'm like, everything is balanced right now. I feel fulfilled in my career, in my relationship, in my family and I've got a little of that fourth, friendship. I've got this package, right now, today. I've got this today. And I am living the dream.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes!
Cobie Smulders: But yeah, I think it's about balance for me.
Jennifer Tracy: Yeah. Okay. Lightning round. Ocean or desert?
Cobie Smulders: Ooh! I'm telling you right now, it's not gonna be. If this lightning round is anything like the beginning of this podcast, it's not gonna be very fast.
Cobie Smulders: Well, let me think. I'm not gonna answer that question. I'm gonna answer a totally different question.
Cobie Smulders: Okay, you said ocean or desert?
Jennifer Tracy: Ocean or desert?
Cobie Smulders: Okay. I can do that. 100% ocean.
Jennifer Tracy: Favorite junk food?
Cobie Smulders: Mac and cheese.
Jennifer Tracy: From where?
Cobie Smulders: As long as it's covered in cheese.
Jennifer Tracy: Anywhere. Got it.
Cobie Smulders: Or nachos.
Jennifer Tracy: Oh! Movies or Broadway show?
Cobie Smulders: Broadway show.
Jennifer Tracy: Day time sex or night time sex?
Cobie Smulders: Ooh, day time.
Jennifer Tracy: Texting or talking?
Cobie Smulders: I mean, I'm gonna say texting, but I wish I could say talking. But to be honest.
Jennifer Tracy: Cat person or dog person?
Cobie Smulders: Ah, neither. I don't wanna wipe anymore shit. I can't do it anymore. I can't do it anymore. I'm so maxed out. I'm so maxed.
Jennifer Tracy: Totally! Have you ever worn a unitard?
Cobie Smulders: Yeah.
Jennifer Tracy: Shower or bathtub?
Cobie Smulders: Shower.
Jennifer Tracy: Ice cream or chocolate?
Cobie Smulders: Ice cream.
Jennifer Tracy: On a scale of 1 to 10, how good are you at Ping Pong?
Cobie Smulders: Ooh, 6.8.
Jennifer Tracy: What's your biggest pet peeve?
Cobie Smulders: People being unkind.
Jennifer Tracy: If you could push a button and it would make everyone in the world 7% happier but it would also place a worldwide ban on all hairstyling products, would you push it?
Cobie Smulders: Fuck yeah. Hairstyling products? I use zero. I have no issue with that.
Jennifer Tracy: Super power choice: invisibility, ability to fly, or super strength?
Cobie Smulders: Oh God. Invisibility. That could be such a long conversation but I'm not gonna get into it.
Jennifer Tracy: Yes, it really could, right? Would you rather have a penis where your tail bone is or a third eye?
Cobie Smulders: Are you able to get pleasure from the -
Jennifer Tracy: Yes. Yes.
Cobie Smulders: - okay. I don't want to sit on anything to get it though, you know what I mean? Good squats though. Or a third eye? What's the function of a third eye?
Jennifer Tracy: It's just a literal third eye, in your forehead.
Cobie Smulders: So it improves your sight?
Jennifer Tracy: It can, if you want. Or it could be a spiritual thing that opens you up to -
Cobie Smulders: Well that's what I'm ... am I having some kind of awakening if I have the third eye?
Jennifer Tracy: Let's say yes.
Cobie Smulders: Cuz you get orgasms from your butt if you're having ... I feel like there should be a balance there.
Cobie Smulders: I don't think I want a ... I can't ... you can't wear pants anymore if you have ... what if you have a boner, and you have it on your, and then you can't wear a skirt, and then it's ... that's just problematic. That's more problematic than there are benefits. So I'm gonna say a third eye. I don't know if I even want the third eye. But if I had to choose, I would say third eye.
Jennifer Tracy: Got it. Okay. What was the name of your first pet?
Cobie Smulders: Tiger.
Jennifer Tracy: What was the name of the street you grew up on?
Cobie Smulders: Trimball. Is this my porn name or something?
Jennifer Tracy: So your porn name is Tiger Trimball.
Cobie Smulders: Tiger Trimball. I kind of like it.
Jennifer Tracy: I like it. I like the alliteration of it.
Cobie Smulders: Yeah. It's kind of like trembles. Like Tiger Trembles but she's trembling.
Jennifer Tracy: Tiger Tremble. I think she's an action hero, too.
Cobie Smulders: She could be. With her third eye power. She could see through walls with that third eye.
Jennifer Tracy: Tiger Tremble Third Eye. Yeah. Something. There's an alliteration that we could use. I can't put my finger on it.
Jennifer Tracy: Cobie, thank you so much.
Cobie Smulders: Thank you so much.
Jennifer Tracy: You're the best.
Cobie Smulders: You're the best.
Jennifer Tracy: Hey guys, thanks so much for listening. I really hope you enjoyed my conversation with Cobie.
Jennifer Tracy: Join me again next week when we have another new exciting guest on MILF Podcast.
Jennifer Tracy: In the meantime, you can find show notes, links to anything we talked about and resources on milfpodcast.com, along with some other goodies, so check it out.
Jennifer Tracy: I can't wait to talk to you guys next week again. Thanks so much for listening.