December 5, 2023
UPDATE
Apple Podcasts names Wiser Than Me the 2023 Present of the Yr
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lemonada Media’s founders mirror on a standout first season
On the outset of Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus from Lemonada Media, Hollywood legend Jane Fonda recalled the sudden revelation she had on the eve of her 59th birthday: that she was coming into her life’s third and closing act.
“You understand how essential third acts are,” Fonda, now 85, instructed host Julia Louis-Dreyfus early on within the episode. “They will make sense out of the primary two, proper? They’re essential — it’s form of a legacy that you simply’re going to go away behind.”
Proper out of the gate, Wiser Than Me attracted a large viewers on Apple Podcasts, spending 29 days straight because the No. 1 present within the U.S. general — a feat that has but to be topped in 2023.
Apple is proud to have fun Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus with the Apple Podcasts Award, a recognition given annually to honor a present that demonstrates high quality and innovation in podcasting. The present’s reputation and accolades are a testomony to its refreshingly genuine strategy to amplifying the voices of older, wiser ladies — a demographic not usually centered in mainstream tradition — and inspiring intergenerational listening.
Over the course of the present’s 10-episode debut season, completed actor and comic Louis-Dreyfus employs her signature wit to mine priceless nuggets of recommendation from ladies who’ve lived lengthy sufficient and effectively sufficient to actually have perspective on all of it.
Starting a brand new chapter of her personal at 62, the first-time podcast host brings personalities like singer Darlene Love, 82, and creator Amy Tan, 71, to the microphone for far-ranging conversations that evoke laughter, tears, and nearly each emotion in between.
“All of those ladies have demonstrated easy methods to stay a life,” Louis-Dreyfus says of her friends. “That doesn’t imply they didn’t make errors, however there’s one thing about being older the place maybe you’re feeling not as protecting by way of sharing. And so I’ve taken benefit of the intimacy that provides. That availability to be actual and to be open is a good present.”
An enormous a part of Wiser Than Me’s attraction is Louis-Dreyfus’s willingness to be playful and stretch the bounds of the standard interview-podcast format, explains Stephanie Wittels Wachs, cofounder and chief inventive officer of Lemonada Media, the podcast’s dwelling community. “Julia by no means needs to have a typical dialog,” she says. “She needs to play and weave and bob, and do all of the enjoyable issues that you simply anticipate from one thing sudden.”
Lemonada cofounder and CEO Jessica Cordova Kramer credit the accessibility of Apple Podcasts with serving to the present attain new audiences. “Apple does an important job of showcasing various reveals of various sorts, following no matter’s taking place on the earth and serving to folks uncover new issues — not simply the preferred issues,” explains Cordova Kramer. “We love our Lemonada Premium channel as a result of we’ve got an enormous slate of reveals now, and for us, that has been an enormous translator of viewers overlap.”
After its wildly profitable first season, Wiser Than Me is gearing up for extra — Lemonada just lately introduced a second season set to premiere in spring 2024.
The present’s natural move and off-the-cuff construction are finest exemplified by a second a mere quarter-hour into that very first episode the place a bomb cyclone interrupts Louis-Dreyfus’s Zoom connection, forcing her to reschedule the remainder of the interview with Fonda. As an alternative of enhancing the mishap out in post-production, the podcast leans into the second, taking listeners behind the scenes as Louis-Dreyfus’s recorder continues to roll.
“That’s why the present is so actual. You’re coping with any individual like Julia, who’s so well-known and beloved, however her web goes out, and it provided this superb peek behind the curtains,” Wittels Wachs says. “I believe having that as episode one made it so accessible for listeners, and that vitality simply saved going all through the collection.”
No matter is off-limits for the present’s friends, who gamely strategy the mic with an unguarded vulnerability as they focus on their highest highs and their lowest lows, together with weighty matters like intercourse, divorce, politics, sexism within the office, demise, and the bodily realities of growing older.
“The magic of it’s that Julia is open about her personal journey in methods she by no means had been earlier than, so you’re getting this type of reciprocity,” provides Cordova Kramer. (Through the present’s first season, Louis-Dreyfus opened up with friends about her battle after shedding a being pregnant, in addition to her expertise being identified with breast most cancers in 2017.)
The Lemonada staff explains that the medium of podcasting lent itself particularly effectively to the form of conversations Louis-Dreyfus was concerned with having. “These ladies don’t want to fret about hair and make-up,” says Cordova Kramer. “They will go online from their bedrooms, their lodge rooms — wherever they’re of their busy lives — and so they can have this lovely dialog with this unbelievable interviewer that’s manner much less guarded and permits for way more authenticity.”
One particularly memorable second for Louis-Dreyfus was sitting down for a dialog with one in every of her lifelong comedy influences for the season’s closing episode.
“Carol Burnett was an enormous a part of my life rising up in a manner, with out me even realizing she was an enormous a part of my life,” Louis-Dreyfus explains. “She was part of the material of our tradition. And as a girl, she actually modeled a feminine energy that type of received into my bones with out my even realizing it.”
With its unapologetic, uncooked discussions, Wiser Than Me is inspiring folks of their 20s, 30s, and past to rethink their attitudes towards getting older.
“There’s loads of worry round growing older, and I believe the podcast is making folks enthusiastic about it. It’s making it much less scary. It’s making it accessible,” says Wittels Wachs. “There’s tangible knowledge that we hope folks will take away from it. After which there’s that inspirational knowledge persons are getting that’s identical to, ‘Oh, growing older. Oh my god — that’s superior. I wish to do this. I wish to be like these ladies.’”
Usually, a number of the present’s most heart-warming moments come courtesy of the post-interview epilogue the place Louis-Dreyfus calls her mom Judith, 89, to debrief and proceed the dialog.
“Judith is a gem — a priceless gem. She’s unbelievable, and he or she’s everybody’s favourite,” Wittels Wachs says. “Julia is simply consuming it up, and so is Judith. I believe it truly is encouraging a form of intergenerational dialogue. And that’s actually what we needed — for ladies of their 20s to speak to their moms and their grandmothers about their experiences.”
Take pleasure in A Peek Behind the Scenes to listen to Julia meet up with Judith about Wiser Than Me being acknowledged because the Present of the Yr. Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for bonus episodes with every visitor from season 1, and comply with Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Apple Podcasts to be notified when season 2 premieres in spring 2024.
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