00:00So you met with congressional staffers today to advocate for funding for the National Endowment of the Arts.
00:05How do you feel like those meetings went?
00:07You know what I have to say? Going into this, I was very nervous. I was very scared.
00:12Not about my performance or how we would do in the room, but about the state of things in general.
00:17And I left with a modicum of hope.
00:20These meetings are just, they're very old school.
00:22You sit in a room, face to face with other human beings.
00:26And you explain your cause. You talk about what you need.
00:30And there's communication. There's questions. You answer those questions.
00:34You ask them questions. They answer you.
00:37And there's a lot of honesty.
00:39You know, in Hollywood, when you're trying to sell a show or sell a script,
00:43everyone in the room is like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm, okay, thank you. We'll let you know.
00:47Here, there's a very clear message of, well, here's why we don't agree.
00:51Here's what we, historically, why we haven't been on board.
00:55So I was, I was very hopeful by the ability to sit down and actually communicate.
01:00You also got to go to the White House. What was that meeting like?
01:04That one was, that was similar. It was very, there were two representatives sitting across from us
01:09who were eager to take in the information that we had to offer.
01:14That's, that was their job.
01:15Their, their imperative for the day was to hear us.
01:18And anytime you'd see them scribble a note down, you're like, yes, okay, I got,
01:22we made an interesting point.
01:24They're taking something into consideration and this is good.
01:27This is a good thing.
01:28So, but it was beautiful.
01:29The, the, the room that we were in was absolutely gorgeous.
01:34Um, and you just kind of felt the years of history walking down the halls.
01:37It was beautiful.
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