134 InSTYLE FEBRUARY 2019
The Queen
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 102
solid, good. I think Nicole Kidman is a smart, non-
bullshit puppy. She isn’t going to mince words, isn’t
going to try to play a game. She’s got a hell of a
picker. She picks things that are really interesting,
and she’s not concerned about how they may be
seen. Amy Adams is the same. I love that she is
starting to produce. I would like Amy Adams to
run for president. I think the world would be better
in general. I’d like Viola Davis to wake me up every
morning and be like, “Here’s your thought for the
day,” and I’d literally write it down. I’ve known Oc-
tavia Spencer for 20 years, and she is the same per-
son she has always been. Same with Allison
Janney. They didn’t change. They ’re not adapting
for their jobs or their careers. They are exactly, un-
apologet ic a l ly a s t hey were.
LB: How ambitious are you? MM: Very. I love my
work, and I want to do better every time. I’m super
self-conflicted. We rewrite and rewrite until we’re
done making the movie and I’m still like, “Can I get
three other lines in?” Not because I want to win but
because I love what we get to do. We always joke
that I’m a shark. Ben likes to sit down, but I’m bet-
ter in motion. I want to make. I want to do.
LB: How important is money to you? MM: I love it. I
don’t worry about it. I spent a lot of years calling
my sister, Margie, and my mom and dad [asking to
borrow money]. I had multiple jobs, but shit hap-
pens. It was hard to keep it together when you’re
not making a living wage, to state the incredibly ob-
vious. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that stuff
now. I’m not in a dream state, but I like not having to
worry about my phone bill or insurance. I’m glad we
make a steady living. I used to keep all the money,
all the accounts, all the things to pay. Now I’m just
l i ke, “ L a , la , la .” I ju st wa nt to t a ke c a re of my k id s.
LB: You and Ben are one of the industry ’s most
solid couples. That must be a relief. MM: We’ve
been together for 20 years and, I think, married
for 13. We met at the Groundlings, really. But we
had first met at a party at Southern Illinois Uni-
versity 10 years prior. I was in college, and he was
in high school. He’s three years younger. I was
very punk rock in those days. It was as if Robert
Smith and Siouxsie Sioux had a baby. People
called me Sugar Cube, and I had blue-black hair. I
wore very avant-garde-theater clothes.
LB: You had no element of surprise because your
clothes were so noisy. MM: It was always something
where I was like, “These are trash bags, but I’ve
made them into pants.” Any way, when we met at
the Groundlings, we went around the room, and
people said where they went to school. I said, “I
sorta, kinda went to SIU. It’s Southern Illinois Uni-
versity. No one’s heard of it. It’s in Carbondale, Ill.
Did n’t rea l ly fi n i sh. Went to New York .” G ot a rou nd
to h i m, a nd he sa id , “ I’m f rom Ca rbonda le.”
LB: Well, you know what they say about Carbondale
couples. [laughs] MM: Ben truly sees things differ-
ently and is like, “I’ll do what I’m thinking of, and
I’m OK if it doesn’t work out.” He’s very disciplined.
I mean, he wrote a book [Being a Dad Is Weird:
Lessons in Fatherhood from My Family to Yours,
2017], but I didn’t even know he was writing it.
LB: It didn’t come up? MM: There is no showiness to
him. He didn’t want to start forgetting stories about
his family. And it’s so lovely. It’s about how much he
loves his dad and how much he loves being a dad. Icried and laughed when I read it, like, “You son of a
bitch. Did you quietly write a book?” If I were writ-
ing a book, I would have gotten so much mileage
out of, “Man, sorry, I can’t come to the phone right
now, I’m writing a book...I can’t possibly get my-
self out of bed, because I’m writing a book.” And he
never mentioned it. He’s a much better human
than I am. When people say, “Real relationships
are so hard,” I’m like, “No.”
LB: Your face lights up when you’re talking about
him. Isn’t that great after 20 years? MM: We ’ve done
four movies now, and the first questions are always,
“How awful was it to work with your spouse?”
“ Ho w mu c h d o y o u fi g h t? ” “ Wh o ’s r e a l l y i n c h a r g e? ”
When we did The Boss, it was, “Who’s really the
boss?” We responded, “It’s fun. We met doing this.
We know we’ve been hit by a lucky stick.” They
were like, “Come on, just how difficult is it?” And
I’m like, “No, it ’s, like, the best thing I’ve ever had
in my life.” And people would get aggressive and
finally say things like, “You know what, if you don’t
want to answer the question, fine.” [ laughs]
LB: That ’s so wacko. “My life is well-adjusted, and I
l o v e my f a mi l y a n d j u s t w a n t t o d o g o o d w o r k. I s t h a t
dull to you?” How are your daughters? MM: They’re
so sweet and good and weird. We put so much care
[into our family]. We’re not, like, clubbing or going
to fancy restaurants. I go to bed at 8:30 every night.
I’m up at 4. I’m like an old man. [My girls] aren’t a
pa r t of a n L. A. scene, a nd I say that with no hatred
for L.A. I love L.A., but they ’re in bed at 8. They go
to a tiny school. We drop them off. We pick them
up. We’ve made the [San Fernando] Valley into a
very small town. We go to the same four places.
LB: OK, what does badass mean to you? MM: Bad-
ass, to me, means doing what should be done in a
situation because it’s what’s needed and maybe
you’re the person to do it, and if not, how do you get
to the person who needs to do it? And not needing
to be liked or think you need to be liked so much. I
was likable, and [now] I don’t really give a shit
about that.
LB: That’s quite something to come to. It takes a
long time. MM: It ’s a big thing. It happened when I
turned 48. Why do I care if you like me? If that’s
the case, we probably shouldn’t like each other.
LB: You don’t need to be a pleaser all the time. MM:
[smi les] Nope. QHer Time
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 106
up dedicated task forces focused on helping those
who work in journalism, advertising, and venture
capital, and it is planning to expand into new cate-
gories soon. In each field Time’s Up is taking down
the same foe: “the patriarchy—the status quo,” Bor-
ders says. “There are entrenched mind-sets and be-
haviors that have been acceptable for hundreds of
yea r s. A nd t hat sou nd s sma l l, but it is g i nor mou s.”
There have also been some more surprising
challenges. Like, she says, “sisters who do not
stand with us. I did not expect that there are some
women who have arguably benefited from the pa-
triarchy [who should] share that power with oth-
ers but have not.”
Whatever comes next, Borders is ready.
“ Women from all across the globe have raised
their hands and used the #MeToo hashtag,” she
says, adding that Time’s Up is a natural extensionof the #MeToo movement. “They want to move
from a place of survivorship to empowerment.
They ’re saying, ‘I have my own personal power;
now let’s make that a collective power.’” QShows of Strength
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 109
be felt on the runways.
“The modern working woman is multifaceted
and lives on her own terms,” says Rosetta Getty,
who, as a mother of three girls, says she looks to
women who have a strong sense of self as inspira-
tions, like Georgia O’Keeffe, Christy Turlington
Burns, and Rowan Blanchard.
“I start by thinking about my lifestyle and how I
want to feel in clothes,” Getty says. “I always think
about how to be comfortable and also elegant.”
Of course, many enlightened men, like Jona-
than Anderson at Loewe or Pierpaolo Piccioli at
Valentino, are out there designing clothes for
strong women, and it’s interesting to hear their
perspective too. Narciso Rodriguez, for one, says
that rules for how to dress to be taken seriously no
longer apply.
“Women still want to have fun with fashion,”
Rodriguez says. “So it’s important to design cloth-
ing that is accessible and easy to wear and also to
make singular pieces that women will covet—
beautifully crafted, well-cut items that make a
woman feel special. If a woman feels good and
looks good, it gives her a power that ’s subliminal.”
Other times, though, women want to pro ject a
power that ’s overt, as when Chiuri makes femi-
nism a proud component of her brand messaging
at Dior. Her fabulous spring collection was broadly
inspired by dance, but it was telling that she paid
specific tribute in her program notes only to fe-
male artists—Loïe Fuller, Isadora Duncan, Ruth
St. Denis, Martha Graham, and Pina Bausch. In a
similar homage, Cornejo created a print for spring
that features the faces of more than two dozen
women she admires, including Jane Goodall, Glo-
ria Steinem, Golda Meir, Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
Coretta Scott King, and Marie Curie.
Whoever thought Marie Curie would be a
fashion statement?
“ We do fan T-shirts for bands,” Cornejo says.
“So why don’t we do them for women?” QGrown Girl
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 112
look out for and certain camera angles to get. She
was so amazing and generous and loving. It was the
exact same with [co-creator] Amy Poehler on Rus-
sian Doll. I think if she didn’t believe I could do this
thing I’d never done before—creating a show and
writing for it and directing some of it—it would
have been ha rd for me to t a ke t hat leap on my own.
JK: It’s great to have a community. Amy is one of
those people who are so good at pushing other peo-
ple’s voices out. NL: One incredible thing about re-
cent times is that it really feels like we’ve flipped
the script around from women as competitors to
our allies in this life. We’ve all decided as a com-
munity that this is something we want to get on
board with. It ’s a huge shift.
JK: Tota lly. It ’s weird because it ’s so counterintui-
tive to what our country is going through. It ’s so