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By
Suzanne

Interview with Troian Bellisario and
Jennifer Beals of "Lauren" on WIGS 4/29/13
Final Transcript
FBC PUBLICITY:
WIGS Conference Call with Troian Bellisario and Jennifer
Beals
April 29, 2013/11:00 a.m. PDT
SPEAKERS
Michelle Marron – MPRM
Troian Bellisario – Lauren
Jennifer Beals – Lauren
PRESENTATION
Moderator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by.
Welcome to the WIGS Conference Call with Troian Bellisario
and Jennifer Beals. At this time all participants are in a
listen-only mode. Later we will conduct a question and
answer session. (Operator instructions) As a reminder, this
conference is being recorded.
I’d now like to turn the conference over to our host,
Michelle Marron. Please go ahead.
M. Marron: Hi, everybody, this is Michelle from MPRM. On
behalf of WIGS thanks again for participating in today’s
call with stars Troian Bellisario and Jennifer Beals. As you
know, Lauren premieres this Friday, May 3rd, with new
episodes posting on consecutive Fridays. From the first four
episodes that you watched Lauren explores the consequences
of dealing with sexual assault in the military, and while
fictionalized, it is a brutally honest portrayal of the
endless red tape and cold bureaucracy that many victims of
sexual assault experience while serving in the military.
The Moderator will give you a reminder in a second on how to
get in the queue to ask a question. Please know that you’re
on mute until you’re brought from the queue and introduced
by name and outlet by the Moderator. And we’ll start with
everybody asking one question, please. Also, I will send you
all a reminder e-mail with a copy of the transcript and how
to obtain the audio recording as well. Hope?
Moderator: Operator instructions.) Our first question comes
from the line of Jamie Ruby at SciFiVision.com. Please go
ahead.
J. Ruby: Hi, thanks so much for talking to us today.
J. Beals: Thank you.
T. Bellisario: My pleasure, my pleasure.
J. Ruby: Obviously most of ... the show ...
J. Beals: I’m losing you.
T. Bellisario: Oh, yes.
J. Ruby: Hello, can you hear me?
J. Beals: Hello. Now, yes ... .
T. Bellisario: I think you went into the SciFi realm. It sounded like ...
for a second.
J. Ruby: Okay. The show gets pretty dark, is it hard for you
guys to get into that mindset, and is it hard to step away
from it?
J. Beals: Do you want to answer first, Troian, because you go
through so much more.
T. Bellisario: Oh, I think it’s definitely very difficult,
especially because you know you’re spending whole days, and
now when we were expanding, doing more episodes, weeks in
these situations and going through these really terrible
conversations and events kind of over and over and over
again as you’re getting coverage of this kind of awful
thing. And so I think actually for me it becomes you
actually want to dive in to be as truthful and honor the
story as much as possible, because you don’t ever want to
become desensitized to it I think. You’re on set all day and
eventually you have to start joking around, everybody’s
working, they’re all tired, and rather than it being
difficult to leave that dark place, I think it becomes more
important to me to kind of be true to it and to make sure
that I’m not just glossing over it, because Lauren’s story
isn’t based on one woman in particular, it is based on true
events, and it is a very common occurrence. And so I think
it is hard, and I definitely smiled every time I got in my
car at the end of the day because I knew I was going to get
to go home and take a bath and pet my dog.
J. Beals: And I think that’s the difference, I think as an
actor you relish those roles where you can play something so
complicated and so difficult and you take the time to dive
in as deeply as you can, and you kind of hold on to that for
the day, even if while you’re joking around there’s still
that little string that connects you to that other
experience. And the difference with us is that we can walk
away from it at the end of the day. There are so many
people, they don’t walk away from it at the end of the day,
that’s what their life is. And I think one of the things for
me working on set, and particularly when I had scenes with
Troian, which was so helpful to me, is that even though we
never talked about it, it’s like this unspoken thing between
us that we both are going through the same thing at the same
time –
T. Bellisario: Yes.
J. Beals: ... and in a funny kind of way. I recognize that
even if she’s telling a joke, I know that underneath in the
surface there’s this other thing bubbling that’s just
waiting to come up whenever it’s summoned to come up, and
you support one another on the set as best you can, even if
it’s through silent communication.
T. Bellisario: Yes, I couldn’t agree more. And I think that
you’re right, that string that you hold on to throughout the
day, for me I think oftentimes it is that knowledge that we
can walk away from this, that we’re fortunate, that I was
fortunate enough not to have gone through this, but that I
have to keep that torch burning for Lauren, like you said.
J. Beals: Yes.
Moderator: Our next question comes from the line of Stephanie
Webber for Ology Media. Please go ahead.
S. Webber: Hi, guys, thank you so much for talking with me
today. Congratulations on season two.
T. Bellisario: Thank you.
S. Webber: Obviously, the first four episodes, I mean, they
were definitely hard to watch a heavy topic. Both of you are
absolutely fantastic. Troian, seeing that you have a huge
fan base with Pretty Little Liars, what was it like
switching gears and doing something more serious and
dramatic in Lauren, and are you looking to do more of these
types of roles in the future?
T. Bellisario: Yes, it was wonderful for me. It’s very funny,
I was so excited that the fans from Pretty Little Liars were
so receptive and so supportive of Lauren, and especially
helpful in getting it out there, because there are so many
of them. And they really took to it and they really saw what
I think, what Jennifer and I both saw in this story, which
is that it needs to be told and it needs to be spread around
as much as possible. But for me it was kind of funny,
because everybody was like, oh, my God this is so different
from Pretty Little Liars, is this the kind of role that you
want to be doing more? And for me Pretty Little Liars was a
really big difference from what I was used to, I kind of
only loved doing really, really dramatic, and what people
would call “dark” roles, and when I got Pretty Little Liars
it was a big change for me, so this kind of feels in an odd
way like going home. There’s a kind of truth and a kind of
raw honesty to the story of Lauren that I really was so
happy to be a part of again, so yes, definitely I think I
would love to do more roles like this.
Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line
of Jamie Steinberg of Starry Constellation. Your line is now
open.
J. Steinberg: Hi, it’s such a pleasure to speak with both of
you.
T. Bellisario: Thank you.
J. Steinberg: I was wondering if each of you could talk about
how shooting season two has been different from filming
season one for you.
T. Bellisario: Jennifer, would you like to start?
J. Beals: I think it’s different in that you’re filming more
episodes in a row, so it feels more like a film for me. I
feel like that’s the major difference, and trying to keep
everything together. I look at my script from that period,
and it’s organized more like a film script than a TV.
T. Bellisario: Yes. I don’t know how you felt, but you got
some other scenes, most of my scenes during the, I think in
fact all of my scenes – oh no, not all of them, but almost
all of them during the first ... were really across from
you, and the biggest difference for me was being away from
you for so long.
J. Beals: Yes, I know. That was very odd.
T. Bellisario: It was very odd, and it was wonderful to
experience this amazing new cast of characters, I feel like
it really filled out the experience of Lauren and of Jo
Stone, their lives and who they had histories with and who
they have futures with. But it was really, I don’t know, I
felt so excited when I finally got to come back to working
with you for our scenes.
J. Beals: Yes, me too, me too.
T. Bellisario: Yes. So that was a big difference.
J. Beals: I know, it was like, “When do I get to work with
Troian?” Not that I don’t love Bradley Whitford, because I
do, I do. But again it’s this sort of unspoken thing where
you know –it’s like sort of I’m the more, Jo Stone is the
more ossified version of Lauren, in a way. That’s the way
that Lauren can end up if she doesn’t stay on the right
path.
Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line
of Jessica Booth of Girl.com.
J. Booth: Hi, thanks so much for talking to us today. What
kind of advice would you give any girl dealing with
something like this, where you’re trying to be true to
yourself even though no one really wants to listen to you?
T. Bellisario: Do you mean a woman’s experience in the
military, sexual trauma, is that what you mean?
J. Booth: Yes, anything like that kind of situation or
anything similar to that, like something horrible happens to
you and no one’s really interested in helping or dealing
with it, I guess.
J. Beals: I think there’s always a community that you can
find. If you’re in the military you have the Service Women’s
Action Network that has help lines, that has hot lines, and
they get calls from all over the United States and overseas
and from active bases, and I think somebody who’s not in the
military there are also help lines, and that it’s really,
really, really important to start talking about it and to
start processing it so that it’s not ensconced in shame, and
to move away from any kind of shame and move toward the
action and healing and justice.
T. Bellisario: Yes. I think it’s awful if anybody is
responding to somebody who’s gone through a traumatic event
with apathy or with indifference, but I think that the only
mistake that the person can make is taking that to be the
only response and not seeking out more help, which I know is
an incredibly difficult and brave thing to do. But
Jennifer’s right, I think that’s the first step toward
healing.
Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from Anca
Dumitru from Digital Journal. Please go ahead.
A. Dumitru: Yes, hi, everyone. Thank you, Troian and Jennifer
for taking the time for this call. My question is: what can
you tell us about the evolution of the Lauren/Major Stone
dynamic around season two?
J. Beals: Do you want to go first?
T. Bellisario: Sure. I guess the evolution of the two women
is kind of beautiful. It’s not exactly parallel, but you get
to see a bit more, I felt, of Jo Stone’s character and
therefore got a lot of insight into Lauren and perhaps what
might be lying ahead in her future. And then as far as their
dynamic, I think with all of that history and that
background exposed, it becomes more of an important
storyline whether these two were ever going to help each
other, or how much they’re going to open up to each other.
J. Beals: Yes.
T. Bellisario: So I think that struggle of how open they can
be with each other and how helpful they can be is the
dynamic that we focus on this round.
J. Beals: Yes, I think for Stone the connection to Lauren has
kind of opened her own past to her, and I think through
working with Lauren she’s revisiting her past and trying to
find her way back in a way to address this wrong that’s
happened to her as well, in a funny way, through Lauren. But
she’s still struggling with what it traditionally means to
be commander and how you handle the bureaucracy and what it
means to be a woman in what is so clearly a male dynamic.
But I do feel like you see the relationship change a little
bit, like you see Stone open up to Lauren a little bit, she
so wants to be able to help her, she so wants to be able to
help her –
T. Bellisario: Yes.
J. Beals: ... and is trying to figure out how to do it and
doesn’t quite know how.
T. Bellisario: I think it’s a very different role because I
think what we’ve established in the first three episodes and
then what continues on is that what I saw Major Stone’s
greatest asset in this world of men, to these men, is her
ability to make their problems go away, to kind of take care
of everything without being told what to do. And then all of
a sudden here comes Lauren, who is somebody that she doesn’t
want to treat as a problem that’s just going to go away and
she has to decide for herself if this is when she’s going to
change and put her foot down, or if she’s going to continue
to play their game.
Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line
of Francesca Hardy of Live Starring You.
F. Hardy: Hi, Troian and Jennifer. Thank you so much for
being with us today. I really appreciate it.
T. Bellisario: Thank you.
F. Hardy: My question to you is, what message is your show
trying to portray to women, and how have you both developed
your characters to achieve that?
J. Beals: I don’t know that Jay, that the writer has said,
“Okay, I’m going to have a message.” I think he’s trying
really to tell the story as truthfully as possible. And
there are several different stories that go under the
umbrella of the Lauren story. You know, there’s the story of
Lauren, who is a truth teller and she’s not going to take a
lot of ... from anybody. And then there’s the story of
Stone, who has had a similar experience but doesn’t know
really how to find justice for herself and is willing to
just sweep it under the rug for fear of repercussions, and
this is something from her own past that I’m referring to.
So in a funny way you see a generational difference of how
to deal with the same problem.
And hopefully, if there’s any message at all that people
take away, men and women, is that you speak up for yourself
and you keep advocating for yourself. And that advocating
means you keep telling the story over and over and over and
over again to whoever will listen. And if they won’t listen
you shout it, you write it, you film it, you do whatever you
need to do to get the story out, because storytelling is
really the thing that changes the world, whether it’s groups
of people going to the Hill and telling their stories over
and over again, or filmmakers telling their stories and
getting those stories out, or writers writing books, it’s
how the paradigm shifts is through storytelling.
T. Bellisario: Yes, I couldn’t agree more. And I think that
Jay, when he wrote this, was very inspired by the
documentary The Invisible War, and just kind of this issue
coming to light. I don’t know about you, Jennifer, you
actually had known about it for a while and had been
researching and writing on it as well and trying to get it
out there, and it was amazing to read this script for the
first time and have known nothing about what was going on,
and then kind of have this whole world open up to me. And so
I think that that’s really what Jay wanted to do is just get
this story out there. All of these women need to be
recognized for their bravery and for what they’ve been
through.
Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line
of Tirdad Derakhshani of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Your
line is open.
T. Derakhshani: Hi, how are you? You just mentioned the
documentary and obviously this show is about a very real
sort of concern. I’m just wondering how do you adjudicate
between the temptation of preaching or presenting a
documentary, and the other side, which is present something
aesthetically powerful, a piece of drama?
J. Beals: I think that one of the things that I wrestled with
when I first looked at this season two was that there are
all these things that come out about Jo Stone which are not
exactly heroic. And I’ve thought, oh, I want to save
everybody, I want to make everything okay, and then after
you lean into the imperfection, because people are not
perfect, and by representing the imperfect you’re telling
the fuller story. And I think that what was important to the
filmmakers and important to us as well was to try to tell
the truth as much as possible within the confines of the
fiction that’s created and not try to make some kind of
platform piece that you would show to members of Congress.
T. Bellisario: Yes, and the thing that I was most surprised I
think about season one as well, but also in season two, was
I thought that a group of people who are not in the military
writing about the military, I thought it was going to be
kind of polarizing and taking a stance of this is the
military’s problem and they’re doing things incorrectly, and
I thought that it would be like what you said, which is
preachy and perhaps divisive. And the thing that I’ve always
loved about what Jay’s written is Lauren and Stone’s intense
love for and their inability to separate from the Army,” the
Army is in their bones” is one of Lauren’s lines in the new
season, that these women believe in this institution through
and through, and that’s why they believe that it can be
better. It’s not about demonizing the Army or anything like
that, it’s about how can we challenge people to stand up for
themselves, to take responsibility, and to make a change
that is needed. So that’s why I think you’re right, it
absolutely could run, we run the danger of becoming preachy,
but I think that they did a very good job of keeping every
character incredibly human. There are no archetypes in this
season, even the rapists of Lauren, you get to see them, you
get to see what they’re going through, you get to see why
they might have done these things –
J. Beals: Not that it makes it forgivable, of course.
T. Bellisario: No, no – as I was working with Raymond Cruz,
seeing the human side of his character and seeing his flaws
and seeing how Lauren actually is a friend to him and he’s a
friend to her, and how lines become so murky. And that’s why
it becomes so important to tell these stories, because it’s
not about what is done cannot be undone ... then justice
needs to be served, so yes.
Moderator: Our next question is from the line of Susan Castle
of JenniferBeals.com. Please go ahead.
S. Castle: Hello, good morning, everyone. I have a question
for Jennifer. Do you believe a woman ranked high up in the
military should be expected to have more empathy with a
female soldier who’s been raped than, say, a male
counterpart? And do you think it’s harder for women to be
more objective than men in such scenarios?
J. Beals: I think as a human being if someone has the
evidence that they’ve been raped or someone comes with a
complaint of rape that it demands empathy, whether you’re a
man or a woman, because what’s not told in this story of
Lauren is how many men are raped in the military.
T. Bellisario: Yes.
J. Beals: And that’s a real big secret right now, because
there’s such shame surrounding that men don’t come forward.
But now more and more are because this story has come out,
because the statistics have come out. In fact, Ruth Moore
was talking recently about how she was traveling and there’s
the Ruth Moore Act right now that’s being put forth in
Congress, and she talks about how she was traveling and she
went through TSA and she had a guy from TSA who had been in
the service come up to her and say thank you for testifying,
because he had been raped in the military and he now felt
empowered to start talking about it, whereas before he felt
so ashamed.
T. Bellisario: Oh wow!
J. Beals: Yes, so I think it’s not just a female issue. It’s
not just an issue with women.
T. Bellisario: And as far as men being objective, I would
hope whenever, like you said, Jennifer, anybody comes up
with a problem that they’re responded to on a level of basic
humanity. All men, we have mothers, we have sisters, and
wives, and daughters, and I don’t think that being a male or
a female should separate you from having basic empathy for
somebody who’s gone through a traumatic experience. I would
hope that it shouldn’t come down to the sex of the person
that you’re telling your story to in an ideal world.
Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line
of Anca Dumitru from Digital Media. Please go ahead.
A. Dumitru: Yes, you’ve had such tough material to work with
and if I think only at the scene at the end of season one
when Major Stone tells Lauren that the case is out of her
hands, that scene is so emotionally charged, and I was
wondering how do you prepare for a scene like that?
J. Beals: ... you, Troian.
T. Bellisario: Oh, I think for me, how do I prepare for a
scene like that, I fell into season one with pretty short
notice, I was offered the job two days before we started
shooting, which was insane. And I basically showed up and
Jennifer was amazing, she just handed me this incredible
book and kind of told me all the things that she was looking
at and researching with documentaries, and I just went home
and I tried to just be a sponge. I just flipped through
passages of the book and I tried to put on The Invisible
War, and I watched that while I was reading the script, and
I guess I just tried to take on as much of the experience
that Lauren could be going through and what her days might
be like. And then I just walked in and, honestly, I just
responded to Jennifer, which is exactly what Lauren’s doing,
she has this whole experience, this horrible event, and then
she has to have her heart broken because she’s reached out
and asked for help. So really I just let Jennifer do her
thing and I just tried to respond as open and honestly as I
could, because it was an incredible scene and she was an
incredible scene partner, so that was my experience.
Moderator: Our next question comes from the line of Jessica
Booth of Girl.com.
J. Booth: Troian, my question is actually for you. You’re a
big role model for a lot of the girls who read our Web site
and I was just wondering what the best advice you’ve ever
gotten is.
T. Bellisario: Oh, wow! That’s a huge question. The best
advice I’ve ever gotten. You know, honestly, I could give
you the most recent advice that I’ve gotten and it really
affected me. I would say that the most recent advice that
somebody gave me is, I’m going to paraphrase it completely,
but just let go. I think the phrase itself, at times there’s
a necessity of letting go of things simply because they are
heavy, and I find that in a lot of my life I hold on to
things sometimes, mistakes that I’ve made, 4, 5, 6, 20 years
ago, and they don’t serve me anymore and I need to be living
my life from a moment of present, in the now. So I guess
that would be the most affecting advice that I have right
now, would be to let go of things that might not be serving
me anymore.
Moderator: Thank you. We have a follow up from the line of
Jamie Ruby of SciFiVision.com.
J. Ruby: Hi. You both sort of started to answer this a bit,
but can you talk more about specifically what kind of
research you both did before being in the show?
T. Bellisario: Jennifer, would you –
J. Beals: Yes, I had started doing research prior to Lauren
for a project that I was developing with, and so I had read
several books and started watching documentaries, starting
finding episodes on different talk shows where female
soldiers were talking about their experience. Then I started
interviewing female veterans through the Illinois Veterans
Affairs Office, and just talking to a lot of people, and
reading, and watching as many interviews as I can. And
YouTube is also really helpful for that, there’s a lot of
information you can get and a lot of interviews you can
watch. And SWAN is certainly really helpful, and then
somebody put me in contact with SWAN and they were very
helpful.
T. Bellisario: Jennifer was very kind and when I had to run
in last minute she basically filled my arms with material
and books, and I just went home and tried to consume as much
of it as possible. And exactly, YouTube helps a lot,
especially for understanding military jargon or
understanding how to salute properly, which was all the
stuff that I had to learn in like a day ... but doing that
and reading from The Lonely Soldier really, and I went back
and I re-read it before we did season two and it’s just a
mind blowing book
J. Beals: That’s Helen Benedict, just for the person that’s
asking the question.
T. Bellisario: Yes. It’s just amazing and it’s not just about
stories of women who have gone through sexual assault,
although many of them have, but it’s also about what our
soldiers are going through, which I didn’t really know
anything about it. I didn’t know what it was like to serve,
the conditions, the food, the water supply, what kind of
tents they’re staying in, the dangers of serving, you can
imagine, you can guess, but to hear these women give their
firsthand accounts was really eye opening.
J. Beals: And just the size of the gear, the weight of the
gear, and the heat –
T. Bellisario: Oh my God.
J. Beals: ... and not drinking before certain hours so they
don’t have to go to the latrine alone in the middle of the
night, and all kinds of details.
T. Bellisario: Yes.
Moderator: A question comes from the line of Tirdad
Derakhshani from the Philadelphia Inquirer. Please go ahead.
T. Derakhshani: What came up on empathy, I guess this is just
a larger question, the issue of can the military change,
it’s a system that’s very disciplinarian where you kind of
have to shelve empathy so you can kill people, right? And
this issue came up in general when the issue of women
serving in combat ... came up a few years ago and it’s
coming up again with sexual assault, do you think this
system can change enough to acknowledge ... empathy?
J. Beals: I think that you start – do you want to answer
first? You go ahead.
T. Bellisario: Oh, no, no, no, go ahead.
J. Beals: There are a couple of things. I think it’s a
really, really interesting ethical point in terms of how a
culture works and the ethos of an organization. But I think
in this case what you’re trying to do is to ensure the
cohesion of a unit in order to perform whatever duties you
need to perform, however violent they might be. And so to
that end, you need to change the culture so that everybody
feels safe within the unit, so that the unit can function in
a cohesive way. So to that end, in order to change culture
we all know how difficult it is to change culture, how
culture can change so slowly, so I think to that end the
first line to change that culture is to start to change the
legislation so that these complaints need to be taken out of
the chain of command.
And you can’t have it, like in the situation at Aviano where
there was a convicted rapist and then the commander came in
and revoked the jury’s decision and just said, “No. Okay,
you’re free to go back to work, you’re free to go back into
your unit,” after the jury had convicted this person. That’s
not okay. That doesn’t ensure anybody’s safety. It doesn’t
ensure anybody’s safe or any kind of cohesion of the unit,
because you don’t feel safe because you’ve just undone the
law. I think as soon as there are more prosecutions that
stick and that don’t get overturned in this draconian kind
of way, that there will be more faith and more cohesion in
the unit to perform whatever duty that they need to perform,
and then hopefully the culture will start to change because
there will be repercussions if it doesn’t change.
T. Bellisario: Yes.
J. Beals: Does that make any sense?
T. Bellisario: It does, and I also think that it was an
amazing ... when we were shooting Lauren and I got in my car
at the end of the day and I heard on NPR that the Combat
Exclusion Policy had been lifted, which meant that women who
had been serving in combat alongside men, but they weren’t
technically supposed to be there, were now going to be
allowed front line jobs and they were going to be recognized
as serving in combat areas.
And that’s a huge part, I think, of changing culture,
because if right now women are allowed to serve in the
military but they’re not allowed to do certain jobs maybe
because there’s deemed to be too dangerous or they’re not up
to it, the men naturally see women as lesser, whether they
see them as weaker or whether they see them as not as
important, and now if a woman is going to be fighting side
by side next to you, you have to trust her with your life,
and therefore, the culture begins to change because you
begin to view, as your fellow soldier you want to protect
them, you don’t want to harm them. It becomes an important
value to you to keep them safe. So I think that that is a
big step, even though it was one of, like Jennifer said, one
of many legislative acts that need to be changed. I think it
was a big step for us this year.
Moderator: Thank you.
T. Bellisario: It’s so weird not getting any responses,
because you’re like, wait.
J. Beals: I know, I know, you want to continue the
conversation.
T. Bellisario: Yes.
J. Beals: Because it’s a really, really interesting ethical
question.
T. Bellisario: Yes.
J. Beals: It’s really fascinating. And it tells you in order
to be in the military how you compartmentalize things and
how you have to compartmentalize things to survive. And of
course everybody’s wish is the day when nobody needs a
military. And up until that time you have to have a group of
people who are defending you and you hope that they are not
misused to defend interests that are not your own.
Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from the line
of Jamie Steinberg from Starry Constellation. Please go
ahead.
J. Steinberg: Hello, again. I was just wondering if you could
each talk about how the show has changed you.
J. Beals: Oh, my goodness.
T. Bellisario: Yes.
J. Beals: My goodness. I’ve learned so many more things. I
just have learned so many more things about, certainly the
military and at least how it feels to be this particular
person in the military, like to be someone like Jo Stone in
the military, how complicated that is. My experience in
Washington with the Service Women’s Action Network I will
never, ever forget for the rest of my life. To be with all
of these service men and women who are so unbelievably,
inexplicably brave and truly courageous to be able to go
tell their story over and over and over again on the Hill to
get something to change, was really life altering, I think.
And I remember a friend of mine said to me that, “To be
courageous is to be able to tell your life story with your
whole heart.” And I feel like that’s what these men and
women were doing on those two days, and doing it certainly
out of their own pain, but also out of the love and regard
for the people who would come after them so that they
wouldn’t have to experience the same sort thing. And to me
that’s the height of humanity, when you can take your pain
and like the finest alchemist turn it into something
beneficial for others, and the key ingredient in that I
think is love.
Moderator: Thank you. Our next question comes from –
J. Beals: Wait, wait, Troian didn’t answer yet.
Moderator: Oh, I’m sorry.
M. Marron: ... if you could answer and then we’ll just wrap
up, I think that would be a great place to wrap up.
T. Bellisario: Sure. No, that is a great place to wrap up. I
was just silently agreeing. I couldn’t agree more. I think
what is such an honor and what I love the most about being a
storyteller is the ability to step into somebody else’s
shoes. When all goes well and you get a wonderful project
like Lauren and you get these amazing characters like with
Lauren and with Jo Stone, your whole vision of the world
expands. And for me, my father served in the military, but I
really knew nothing. I wasn’t born while he was serving, so
I knew nothing of that lifestyle. And to get to step into
that world and to get to understand and do research and hear
stories and watch film about people’s experience and lives
serving their country, which is something so completely
different from what I do every day, but to stand in their
shoes and fight for what they believe in, you just get a
richer experience of life because you understand one more
thing from somebody else’s point of view.
And I know that I keep on ... but the great honor that it is
to assume this role and to stand for these women and tell a
story which is one of hundreds of thousands of stories of
these women, to get it out there so that maybe more people
will listen the next time and then a change can be made and
then a huge change can be made, and then we’re not talking
about this as an issue anymore hopefully, but it’s something
that we all kind of came together and made a difference in.
So, yes that for me was how it changed me. It was just a
huge honor and it just kind of opened my eyes a bit more to
the world.
M. Marron: Thank you so much. I think that’s going to be the
end of our conference call. Thank you all, again, for taking
part, and we will send around an e-mail to everybody of how
you can obtain the transcript audio recording, as well as
any other assets that you may need.
T. Bellisario: Thank you all so much. And thank you,
Jennifer. It’s good to hear your voice again.
J. Beals: Yes, it’s good to hear your voice again too. Thank
you everyone for taking part. I appreciate it.
T. Bellisario: Thank you.
J. Beals: Bye-bye.
T. Bellisario: Bye.
Moderator: That does conclude our conference for today. Thank
you for your participation and using AT&T Executive
Teleconference Service. You may now disconnect.
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