Rosie O'Donnell started in stand-up before landing roles on television movies. The Rosie O'Donnell Show won Emmys and launched her into the talk show circuit, where she came out of the closet two months before the show ended its run.
O'Donnell then became the moderator on The View, further showing her comedic side while becoming embroiled in controversy. Since then she has been raising children, blogging and running Rosie Radio on Sirius XM Radio. She now starts a new endeavor on OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network with The Rosie Show this week.
Windy City Times: Hi, Rosie. We love seeing you pop up around town and I wanted to welcome you personally to Lakeview and Boystown. I expect you to be at Sidetrack for Show Tunes Sundays.
Rosie O'Donnell: Honey, I didn't even know about this. I'm jotting it down. Sidetrack Show Tuneswhat time?
WCT: It's around four o'clock. It's every Sunday. Sidetrack is the gay bar there with [a lot of] televisions. They re-enact Broadway musicals; for example, the crowd throws napkins when [it shows] Titanic and everyone sings all the words.
RO: Oh my Lord, I am so there. They'd better reserve me a table.
WCT: [Laughs] I can arrange that for you.
RO: Can you do requests? Do they ever do The Rink?
WCT: For you I'm sure they would, yeah.
RO: Come onLiza Minnelli, Chita Rivera. Very few people know the words to that. I could have a solo.
WCT: They have played that one many times in the past. Do you want to bring Broadway Kids to the city and maybe team up with Broadway in Chicago?
RO: Yes. First of all, the entire cast of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is going to be on in the first week. We do this whole program for the last decade where we teach inner-city kids who live below the poverty level song, dance and life skills. These kids are going to come perform as well. We're going to have a lot of Broadway. As soon as we open the show which, is not really an opening but I think Broadway-like, as soon as we do the show [Oct. 10] I'm going to have a little bit more time. I'm going to go check out the theater here in Chicago because I understand it's pretty fantastic.
WCT: Yeah, Carrie Fisher is here tonight, just to let you know.
RO: Yes, and she's actually on the show as well. I've seen that show, Wishful Drinking. Have you seen it?
WCT: I saw it on cable. I haven't seen it live yet.
RO: It's fantastic and her new book is pretty amazing. I just finished it. It's called Shockaholic. It talks a lot about her father and her last Christmas with Michael Jacksonpretty fascinating stuff.
WCT: I have to check it out. So you finally bought a house and are no longer staying in a hotel…
RO: I actually move in tomorrow, so I'm thrilled about that. I love being in a neighborhood that I can walk to the restaurants for dinner and not have to order room service. I actually love it here and can imagine living here for this next chapter of my life.
WCT: How was it working with Oprah?
RO: Well, Oprah is sort of magical. I'm about to turn 50 in March. Half my life I've watched her on television, and I was one of those crazy super-fans who used to [record it on my VCR] back in the old days. Later I put her on my TiVo, and I would watch it every night. So it was a huge thrill for me and a vote of confidence.
You know, the truth is, when I was about to sign with NBC, I questioned whether or not I would be able to do it and to sort of withstand the network kind of pressure and the network mishigas that happens and happened. Right around that time the Jay Leno/Conan O'Brien fiasco had just finished, and I was not feeling very safe or secure in the network's investment in their talent.
WCT: I remember that, but people knew you would be a good match for the show.
RO: People started calling me right after [Oprah] said she was going to leave her program. I called my agent and said, "Does she need someone? Because if she needs somebody for her network, I'd rather do it there." But agents never really care about your emotional desires. They care more about their financial bottom line.
So you make a lot more money on network TV than you do on cable but, to me, it wasn't ever about the money. No part of my career was ever about money. It was always about trying to do the best job in the best place that would be most congruent with my life and my values. That's definitely where I ended up, largely because I do believe in what she taught us all that you can live your best life, and if you dream it, you can live it. A large part of my career and my success is because of watching her and learning from her, so to be here now with her is beyond a dream come true. It's like everybody's dream. For me it's like winning the lottery. I'm excited to get started. I hope that I serve her and the network well.
WCT: Do you feel pressure for your show to be a big success?
RO: I don't feel any pressure. I feel nothing but privilege, truthfully, and it's going to be thrilling. For her to not only ask me to be on her network but for her to also give me her studio, her staff, her buildings and welcome me to her cityit's an unbelievable city, Chicago. She is totally the mayor of the city, the emotional mayor, because everywhere I go, people are like, "Hey, Rosie, thanks for coming here. Hey, Ro, how you doing?" I have yet to pay for a meal in any restaurant. At my hotel I was staying, there were gifts of cupcakes and chocolate. It's been an unbelievable welcome, and it's all really because of the goodwill that she's garnered for over two decades here. She has set me up in a way that few ever get to with a generosity that's not often found in Hollywood.
WCT: How have things changed since your original talk show?
RO: It's changed completely. It's done a 360. It's not the same landscape in any capacity. When I started in 1996, I went to the NATPE [National Association of Television Program Executives] conference and had to convince people that I was not going to do a Jerry Springer-type show. I had to literally sit down with station owners and advertisers and tell them, no, I was going to do Merv Griffin. The philosophy at the time was "That will never work," because what was number one in daytime in '96 or what was drawing all of the media attention was a Jenny Jones guest had been murdered, and Geraldo Rivera had his nose broken.
That's when I entered into the foray, so I was dubbed "the Queen of Nice." Comparatively I was, because what we were seeing was violence on a daily basis. So with the exception of Oprah there was no other show on TV that was putting forth messages of positivity back in 1996. It was a whole different game.
Also, the Internet was not yet flourishing. I remember having meetings with Warner Brothers and asking for an Internet component. They said, "People don't have computers." They later bought AOL. That was a problem. But they didn't really understand the Internet and the way that media is now consumed by the average person at home. They want their celebrities accessible. There was no Perez Hilton then, there was no TMZ, there was no media Internet pop-culture forum like there is now.
There's such fractured viewing styles in the afternoon. Used to be you really had three options: ABC, NBC or CBS. You were either going to watch game shows, talk shows or soap operas, and that was it. But it's changed completely now. The kind of numbers that we got in the '90s were 5.3s, sixes sometimes. Now people get ones on network television, never mind on cable.
WCT: Do you have some dream guests?
RO: Adele we are hoping to get. She just cancelled her North American tour. She has throat issues. But as soon as she's up and healthy, she'll be here, and that's thrilling for me. I'd love to have Melissa McCarthy on. I could not believe how funny she was on SNL. Literally, I had to wear a Depends undergarment watching that show. I've never seen anyone as funny, never mind their first time, as the host, so I'd love to have her on the show.
There are so many new young talents that I think are astounding. Emma Stone is one of them, a brilliant young actress. I met her actually one night at a restaurant. Ryan Gosling, I think, is an amazing actor. I'm sort of fortunate in that I've interviewed so many people. I was on for six years. We usually had three guests per show. I was really fortunate to have spoken to so many Hollywood luminaries in my career already that it's the new ones and the young ones, the ones that I sort of missed that I would love to get to sit down with now.
WCT: Any gay topics or guests?
RO: I don't know, specifically. Just like any other minority group, I don't specifically think, "Well, I'm going to have gay topics as well as African-American issues." Like every other artist and comedian, I talk about my life, so things that pertain to my life are probably going to appear more pertinent than to a host who maybe was not gay. It's an entertainment show, so are we going to have gay guests? Yeah, and we're going to have a gay host.
Nowadays, it doesn't seem so relevant. In '96 when my show started, not one interviewer even asked if I was gay. Not one. This was before Ellen came out. This was before "Will and Grace" was on. It's a whole different world than it was in '96 when I started. It's really inspiring to me as well to see like Neil Patrick Harris win the Emmy Award and host the Oscars and the Tonys, to be so brilliant, and have a husband and a baby. It's not a big deal in a way that I could not have imagined when I began my career. So will we have gay people on? Yes. Will we talk about things that include LBGT issues? Yes. Is it going to be a primary focus? No. It's going to be just one part of who I am, and one part of the show.
WCT: What is the format?
RO: We have a live band. I'm going to come out and do standup with a microphone like you do in a comedy club. They tried to get me to do one without a mic on my old show. I never could do it because I don't really tell jokes. I don't really do monologues. I tell stories, and my standup was more about stories. So we're going to have a microphone and a stand. I'm going to do about 10 minutes of stand-up. I'm going to take questions from the audience like Carol Burnett did. We're going to go to commercial, come back and have a guest probably for three full segments.
WCT: So more time with one guest.
RO: One thing I really didn't like about my old show and about the trend that's happening on talk shows today is the guests get, like, five minutes, six minutes, and you can't really get a conversation going in that amount of time.
So we're going to have a real lengthy sit-down, insightful interview, not always with a celebrity who has something to promote. Like Russell Brand is my first guest. He doesn't have a movie coming out. He has nothing to sell. He's just coming to hang and talk. That's really going to be, I think, the difference between our show and maybe some of the others that are on now. Then we're going to have a human-interest segment we're going to play a game at the end of every show.
WCT: Will there be koosh Balls?
RO: Here's the thing: They don't make them anymore. We called the company and they're like, "No we don't make them." The guy who was from Scotlanda lovely man who gave us them free and then he actually made the Rosie Show Koosh Ball shooter and gave all the money to charityno longer owns the company, so we'll see. I would have loved to have said, "Everything is going to be different this year, everything" then thrown koosh balls at everybody. But we'll see what we could do. I'm sure I'll find something to shoot at people because I enjoy that.
WCT: Are you nervous about the winter?
RO: People in the audience kind of laugh at me and go "Oh, just wait." The only thing I'm afraid of is this Snowmageddon winter thing, but my garage is apparently heated, which is essential, I've heard. My roof apparently has something that will melt the ice. I feel like I'm getting ready for the frozen tundra. But aside from that, I'm good to go. I could truly imagine having my whole family move here and live here, and it's really beautiful, I have to say. People always say people in the Midwest are nicer, but now I've been here. I'm like "Oh my God! They really are!"
WCT: Good to hear that. See you at Sidetrack.
RO: I'll be there, Sundays at 4!
The Rosie Show just debuted this past Monday on OWN. Visit www.oprah.com/own for details and listings.