At the New York premiere of “It Ends With Us” earlier this year, a red carpet reporter asked star Jenny Slate about acting alongside actor-director Justin Baldoni. Artfully dodging speculation that the cast, including lead Blake Lively, had ganged up against Baldoni, Slate instead said that the experience made her realize that she never wants to be in that position.
But as a writer, actress and comedian, Slate has been, co-creating the animated film “Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” and voicing the title character, and writing her stand-up specials, the most recent of which, “Seasoned Professional” premiered on Prime Video in February. However, Slate doesn't see it that way.
“I don't really feel comfortable telling people what to do,” she says, explaining why she doesn't see herself directing. “It's hard enough for me to tell my daughter what to do! I don't find it attractive and, strangely, I find being told what to do attractive. … There is a part of me that is such a wild animal that sometimes I like to be a good little dog.”
Slate declines to say anything more about “It Ends With Us” and focuses on his book of essays, “Lifeform,” which was published Tuesday. It focuses on her daughter, or rather, being pregnant with her daughter, whom Slate gave birth to in 2021.
However, it's much more than that, says Slate: “I understand how you might be, this is one person's story about their pregnancy, but to me it's much more than that.
Jenny Slate's new book, “Lifeform,” chronicles her experience with motherhood.
(Small, Brown and company)
“'Form of life' is me trying to say, this is the way of my life,” whether it be the ebb and flow of existence, or the recognition of being just a small organism that makes up the universe. Several animals are on “Lifeform”: the raccoons that plague Slate and her husband, Ben Shattuck, in their Massachusetts home, or the dog Storm, an enigmatic neighborhood husky whose face adorns the only novelty item of clothing Slate owns.
So the fact that in our conversation he compares himself to an obedient canine is appropriate, as he also describes his changing body as a “wildly pregnant mammal” in “Lifeform,” losing “nests” of fur that resemble fur. balls. She mentions disjointed knees that were a result of her fetus's growth and skin discoloration on her upper lip that resembles a mustache from afar. These are some of the pregnancy symptoms that are often kept secret until they are experienced and faced with the refrain: “Why didn't anyone tell me about this?” Slate says she was aware of the many pregnancy complications, but didn't think they would happen to her.
“It all surprised me when it happened to me, because it turns out that there is a version of myself that I consider the 'normal' version, but that's just a construction,” she says. “The normal version of me is not someone who has a life form growing inside their body. The normal version of me is the post-puberty adult body I've had since I was 16, and this was a whole new series of experiences that were really shocking.”
These bodily concerns are expressed in increasingly desperate letters to Slate's doctor, which she says were ways of gesturing “toward what needs to be held.” “He’s telling me how I should take care of myself.”
Motherhood has made Slate kinder to herself, shedding feelings of foolishness, self-criticism, and self-doubt. “I've apologized when I didn't have to and made concessions just to be included, and those things no longer feel like they belong in the only life I have to live,” she says. .
This includes your job. She feels she is moving forward as an actress, from a role in the 2023 Academy Award-winning best picture “Everything Everywhere All at Once” to the upcoming “Dying for Sex,” in which she appears opposite Michelle Williams, and the Amy Adams vehicle “At the Sea.” Slate praises both actors and says she will be first in line later this year to see Adams' animated “Nightbitch,” a film that shares with “Lifeform” themes of postpartum animalism.
As Slate writes in the book: “After doing all this, I have become so intense and able to handle so many things that if I could ever do my job the way I really want to do it, I think I could be happy.” “better than ever.”
