Cultivating Creativity with Actress & Horticulturalist Kathleen O'Grady

 Photo: Kathleen O'Grady (L) Faith Imaafiion (R) Theatre of Note's production of Fruition 2019


A lifelong actor, Kathleen O’Grady’s earliest memory of her life’s work finds her riding with her siblings around Los Angeles, in the back of her mother’s car—driving to the next audition. Growing up in the town of Reseda -  named for the mignonette a fragrant plant found in the gardens of the San Fernando Valley - her parents moved north to the Bay area where team soccer and volleyball replaced limited theatrical opportunity.

Chicago’s robust theater community called this aspiring performer to enroll in DePaul’s Theater School, formerly The Goodman School, where she studied under legendary thespian mentors Dr. Bella Itkin, and Joe Slovick. After graduation Kathleen catapulted from commercials, created her own theater company, and performed with Steppenwolf, the theater company which launched the careers of Joan Allen, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, and Martha Plimpton. 

Inspired by love, a move to New York found Kathleen exploring every aspect of her craft from guest starring roles in Murder in the First, Law & Order,  Off Broadway productions, and more commercials. A pivot arrived while finding a natural proclivity for landscape design while working in her garden.  Following a new passion, she studied landscape design and horticulture at Columbia University, where she earned her master’s degree.  

Kathleen follows sister passions of acting, producing, landscape design integrating native plants, beneficial insects, soil regeneration, restorative permaculture, and land stewardship. This master artist and designer can be found at Theatre of Note, and Gregory Davis & Associates Landscape Design. It was such a thrill to catch up and host Kathleen on this episode of Intrinsic Drive ® .
 

Intrinsic Drive ®  is produced by Ellen Strickler and Phil Wharton and Andrew Hollingworth  is sound editor and engineer.

Transcript

Phil Wharton  (00:00):

A lifetime of training, practice, study hard work through discipline, some achieve excellence, mastery, fulfillment, self-actualization. What can we learn from their beginnings, discoveries, motivations, and falls. How do they dust themselves off and resume their journey? During these interviews, stories and conversations, we reveal their intrinsic drive.

(00:25):

A lifelong actor, Kathleen O'Grady's, earliest memory of her life's work, finds her riding with her siblings around Los Angeles in the back of her mother's car, driving to the next audition. Growing up in the town of Reseda, named for the Migonette, a fragrant plant found in the gardens of the San Fernando Valley. Her parents moved north to the Bay Area where team soccer and volleyball replaced limited theatrical opportunity. Chicago's robust theater community called this aspiring performer to enroll into DePaul's Theater School, formerly the Goodman School, where she studied under legendary thespian mentors, Dr. Bella Itkin and Joe Slovick. After graduation, Kathleen catapulted from commercials, created her own theater company and performed with Steppenwolf, the theater company, which launched the careers of Joan Allen, John Malkovich, Laurie Metcalf, and Martha Plimpton. Inspired by love, a move to New York, found Kathleen exploring every aspect of her craft from guest starring roles in Murder in the First Law and Order, Off Broadway productions and more commercials, a pivot arrived while finding a natural proclivity for landscape design.

(01:39):

While working in her garden, following a new passion, she studied landscape design and horticulture at Columbia University where she earned her master's degree. Kathleen follows sister passions of acting, theater, production, and native landscape design, integrating native plants, beneficial insects, soil regeneration, restorative permaculture, and land stewardship. This master artist and designer can be found at Theater of Note, and Gregory Davis and Associates Landscape Design. It was a thrill to catch up with and host Kathleen on this episode of Intrinsic Drive. Hey, Kathleen, it's so great to see you again. It's been way, way, way too long. Many moons.

Kathleen O' Grady  (02:26):

Same here, Phil. It's so great to see you. Yeah, it's kind of shocking how long it's been. I'm seeing a little white on the top for you, and certainly seeing it on the top for me.

Phil Wharton  (02:39):

Yes It's good. It's so true. Yeah. If we go into the beginning for you, Kathleen, and when I was just thinking maybe take us back to Reseda, take us back maybe to early childhood memories of when you thought maybe I want to be an actor? Maybe this is something, is there anything that comes up for you there?

Kathleen O' Grady  (03:04):

Sure. I think it's so interesting, and I have been thinking about this a lot lately, but for me, I'm the child of two New Yorkers who moved out to California. They had a parcel of cute kids, so it was my parents who decided to put us in commercials. So a huge portion of my early childhood memories are my New York driving mother, driving the streets of LA with two, sometimes three screaming kids trying to get herself and her kids to auditions in and around LA. So it was something that we did. It was something that we were quasi successful at. We booked some things and some money went into college funds, and so it just became something like, oh yeah this is a thing that I do. And as I got older, well, this is interesting. As I got older, the cute little sort of Irish mug started morphing into an awkward teenager and then morphed again into a young woman. And so even from childhood as an actor, all these phases happened. And what's so interesting where I am now is those phases have not stopped. It's all continued. Does that answer your question about the beginnings?

Phil Wharton  (04:46):

It does. It does. Yeah. Now you're getting these characters, I noticed was a lot of the commercials, and then also in the film, in the reels I watched, it's the mom motif. You're becoming the mom now, but it must be surreal, the full circle of life as an actor also, but also portraying these different phases of life.

Kathleen O' Grady  (05:14):

And that was always really attractive to me. I thought, if you get a foothold in this business, you can take it through your whole life.

Phil Wharton  (05:26):

That's right.

Kathleen O' Grady  (05:26):

As it is, it is about the stages that you are in. And Phil, thank you for saying that. I'm the mother now, but no, no, no, no. I am pushing up the hill to grandma.

Phil Wharton  (05:39):

Hey, I don't believe that.

Kathleen O' Grady  (05:41):

That's how things kinda go, especially in TV land. But the thing about it, so in my mind's eye, I would be able to change as I went through all the phases of life. But then the interesting part and the challenge is the opportunities that are, and are not available to you as you change through your life. So back when we were hanging out much more, I was really primed for that sort of non-threatening mom, could play comedic, could play dramatic. So I had a really fruitful sort of thirties into the end of my forties.

Phil Wharton  (06:33):

Wide range.

Kathleen O' Grady  (06:35):

Then things change as I became older and the demographics that they're trying to hit also changed, and I was kind of growing out of those demographics that were the ones that were getting all the commercials or all the roles. So you have to navigate that too in this business.

Phil Wharton  (07:00):

Yeah. Was there kind of an inciting moment that you could remember maybe in Reseda or maybe transitioning, and what year did you guys move to Marin County?

Kathleen O' Grady  (07:13):

We moved to Marin when I was going into fourth grade, so I think nine or ten.

Phil Wharton  (07:22):

Okay yeah, that makes sense.

Kathleen O' Grady  (07:23):

A very different place from Southern California. Very different California. And that was another time in the transition where, and I was also kind of going into that sort of awkward teenagery phase. I was sort of moving that way and there was far less opportunity for us to work in San Francisco.

Phil Wharton  (07:46):

That makes sense.

Kathleen O' Grady  (07:47):

Yeah.

Phil Wharton  (07:48):

So you weren't in a hub for the commercials, but then did something spark in you that, okay I want to study craft versus I'm in commercials, because that's probably was a big transition at that point.

Kathleen O' Grady  (08:05):

Possibly. Well, yes. For me, it was kind of all the same. It was all active. But I did, and this might be interesting as we progress in the story of me, but I wanted to codify. I thought, I get some work here. I'm pretty good at it. So I decided to study, and when it was time to go to college, I was living my family. Then moved from the Bay Area, the idyllic, beautiful San Francisco Bay area to Reno, Nevada was a completely different.

Phil Wharton  (08:51):

That would be different.

Kathleen O' Grady  (08:53):

You are right, my friend. I mean in a lot of ways it was great, but it had nothing to do with California in so many ways. So when I graduated from high school and I went to a Catholic school that didn't really have any theater program or even the athletic program in the school that I went to, we spent all of our gym time learning to do the Hustle.

Phil Wharton  (09:23):

That's amazing.

Kathleen O' Grady  (09:24):

And you know what? I came from Northern California where I was on the volleyball team, played soccer as a younger kid, and here I am in gym doing the Hustle when I was in high school.

Phil Wharton  (09:37):

That's a culture shock there. We're not in Marin anymore. No more Mount Tam, or Stinson Beach.

Kathleen O' Grady  (09:47):

But anyway, I decided when I was, as I was getting ready to go to school, that I wanted to study theater. So I wound up auditioning for a local school, UNLV. I was in northern Nevada, but I got accepted with a scholarship to UNLV in their theater program.

Phil Wharton  (10:08):

In Las Vegas?

Kathleen O' Grady  (10:09):

 In Las Vegas.

Phil Wharton  (10:10):

Okay.

Kathleen O' Grady  (10:12):

So I guess it was always going to be the thing that I was most interested and then I figured I could make a living at because I had already proven to make some kind of money at it.

Phil Wharton  (10:24):

Right.

Kathleen O' Grady  (10:25):

So then further continuing the story of me, I left UNLV because there was so much talk at that time, and this was in the early eighties about the theater scene in Chicago. So I picked up with a friend and I moved myself from UNLV from Las Vegas to Chicago, Illinois. Again, another huge culture shock because it so cold there. I'd never experienced, I had a cold in Chicago where the nose hairs, if you happen to leave with any kind of moisture, it all freezes in your nose.

Phil Wharton  (11:09):

Oh my gosh. Yeah. And the wind just of the lake effect there.

Kathleen O' Grady  (11:15):

It's cold. But in Chicago, I started working in local theater, and I also went to, I got accepted into the Goodman School of Drama.

Phil Wharton  (11:26):

That was when you went to Goodman?

Kathleen O' Grady  (11:28):

That's when I went to Goodman. And then after school I stayed around for a bit and worked in theaters all over Chicago, including Steppenwolf, some other terrific theater companies in Chicago. And then I met a particular person that you know, and moved to New York.

Phil Wharton  (11:48):

Oh my gosh.

Kathleen O' Grady  (11:48):

In New York, I did the same thing. I got hooked up with a terrific commercial agent and did lots of theater and did the TV. That came my way. So I was able to navigate all those phases in my life while still practicing the craft, and actually getting hired. So it all went pretty well until I just hit an age where, like I say, the demographics were a little less concerned about what I thought about what my family might look like. I was just in that age, that wasn't a commercial demographic that was valuable.

Phil Wharton  (12:38):

For the commercial part of acting.

Kathleen O' Grady  (12:40):

Right for the commercial part of acting, I mean for the stage, you can still, for the stage and for film work, again, if you're lucky enough to get chosen or to get yourself in front of people, even that still allows for changing through life. The older you get, I think you become a better actor if you're still in the game for after 20 years, 25 years.

Phil Wharton  (13:08):

Absolutely. That makes sense.

Kathleen O' Grady  (13:12):

So I kept up with it. I kept up with it. Some years were great, some years weren't so good. But on the average, I have been a pretty lucky actor, primarily making my living doing commercials.

Phil Wharton  (13:27):

Wow.

Kathleen O' Grady  (13:27):

Yeah.

Phil Wharton  (13:29):

And take us back, the discovery experiences from theater, like mentors and teachers at DePaul. Was it sort, I know there was a mention of Bella Itkin and Joe Slovick. Would those be?

Kathleen O' Grady  (13:50):

Yeah, definitely seminal teachers and seminal directors. Dr. Bella was somebody who really believed in me. She didn't ever show favoritism or she treated everyone the same, but there were just times when I knew she had her eye out on me for me, and it was really, really appreciated. There was some stuff going on in my life and she just knew it, so she wouldn't necessarily pry, but she would get me back on track.

Phil Wharton  (14:27):

Beautiful

(14:27):

Joe Slovick also what a character he was, but a great director. I did a beautiful play while I was in school called Lighty Breeze, that he directed, and it was a great joy to do. So they were kind of the iconic figures in school, and I got to work with both of them. But then I had some other really great teachers at Goodman, which is now, by the way, called The Theater School.

(14:58):

The Theater school. I noticed that. Okay.

Kathleen O' Grady  (15:01):

Yes. Matter fact, one of the year I graduated was the year that they wanted to change, wanted to change it from the Goodman to The Theater School.

Phil Wharton  (15:10):

The Theater School.

Kathleen O' Grady  (15:11):

Dr. Bella took me aside and she pointed her finger at me and said, you went to the Goodman to the Goodman.

Phil Wharton  (15:19):

That's amazing.

Kathleen O' Grady  (15:20):

So that's what I say when I talk about where I went to, and then after school, I worked at Steppenwolf, I started my own theater company in Chicago.

Phil Wharton  (15:34):

Did you really? Yeah. Those must have been amazing experiences. What about Steppenwolf? I mean, you were in at that time, it was a zeitgeist of coming together of a lot of these great actors to be there in that, what stood out about that experience for you Kathleen?

Kathleen O' Grady  (15:53):

Steppenwolf, again sort of bubbled into this really iconic place to be, and when I worked with them, a lot of the people like John Malkovich and Lauren Metcalf, those people had already left and gone to do all the amazing things that they did after leaving Chicago. But the absolute sort of thrill to work at such an august theater company. Interestingly when I was there, they were also in transition. They were leaving their original space where I saw some amazing theater, this little sort of little small, it probably was a garage at some time.

Phil Wharton  (16:38):

Wow. Perfect.

Kathleen O' Grady  (16:41):

When I worked with them, they were in between that and their new space, which was built not long after I left Chicago. So they were also in transition. But working there was just a joy, and it was kind of this thing where had I stayed in Chicago, I think I would've had other opportunities to work with Steppenwolf just because I think they're definitely the kind of theater company that envelops you. If they like to work with you, they'll continue to work with you.

Phil Wharton  (17:13):

So it's like multiple productions when you're sort of in the zone with them.

Kathleen O' Grady  (17:19):

Or actually being asked to be a company member because they are a company of actors. I would imagine that people like John Malkovich is still a Steppenwolf theater company member, even though he probably hasn't performed there in decades. So they kind of make it a very family atmosphere, not that it's always good times. It can be it's art, so it can sometimes be a fight right.

Phil Wharton  (17:53):

That's good. And other places it seems like, would you classify this as sort of an ascent? Are you kind of rising in your craft now? And how old are you at this point? During this Chicago phase.

Kathleen O' Grady  (18:09):

I was in my early to late twenties. That was a time when I was starting to make enough money as commercially that I didn't need to have a day job. I was going from theatrical production to theatrical production just because

Phil Wharton  (18:29):

Wonderful.

Kathleen O' Grady  (18:31):

It was so exciting. And I think when you're in your mid twenties, your early twenties, that's what you do. You don't eat sleep, you don't need to eat. You just got to go. And I really was, I remember one time I think I knew that there was something on the horizon, but I knew I wasn't in rehearsal or performance. So I had three weeks, and I just remember laying on a really uncomfortable couch in the uptown apartment. I was living in Chicago, and I turned on the TV and I laid on the couch and I thought, oh my God, I don't have to do anything. I can just be here. So I realized that I had been very, very busy and I loved every minute of it.

Phil Wharton  (19:22):

I bet. Yeah. You're right in the middle of that passion. So you're just charged by that as a fuel.

Kathleen O' Grady  (19:32):

And I think at that time, Phil, it was the passion and that innate drive. Yes. You talk about that and the training and all of the work that I had begun to do and started out with, it started to meld. I was at my best then because I had all the training, I had all the experience, and everything was running on eight cylinders. So I was really at a peak then. And the fact that I got to go from show to show and then do the occasional day or two on a TV show or a two or three commercials that year, it was in a lot of ways it felt like it would never stop.

Phil Wharton  (20:24):

That's great.

Kathleen O' Grady  (20:25):

Yeah.

Phil Wharton  (20:28):

So I think you brought us into the drives, right? Some of the next part of the show as we kind of talk about what were the internal and external motivations during that time in your life, can you remember some of those, either of those, either an internal or an external motivation that comes up for you during that time?

Kathleen O' Grady  (20:49):

I think internally I was very motivated. I was pretty competitive too, because I was a kid that played sports, and so if I saw somebody that I admired and respected as an actor doing something, I kind of wanted to meet them at that.

Phil Wharton  (21:11):

And learn and get that transference of that energy.

Kathleen O' Grady  (21:14):

Exactly

Phil Wharton  (21:15):

The craft.

Kathleen O' Grady  (21:15):

And there were a lot of people that were doing a lot of great work. So just the competition level and the standards were really high. So that was, I think, external, or sorry, that was internal. I mean, external I was having fun too. Everyone I knew was living that life or show to show and creating relationships as you move on from one situation to another. Everybody in the city of Chicago who was an actor, we all went to the same two or three bars. So if you weren't in a show, you saw somebody at the bar who was in this show that you would then the next day go to the show. So it was.

Phil Wharton  (22:05):

Family like a community,

Kathleen O' Grady  (22:08):

Yeah. Which I think sometimes when I am driving around LA and you just get a glimpse every once in a while of Paramount or the gates at Sony now, and I get a glimpse of what it might've been like in the forties or the

Phil Wharton  (22:23):

Fifties, the thirties, right? Yeah. The highlight of that.

Kathleen O' Grady  (22:27):

 Exactly. Where it was a community. It was a company town.

Phil Wharton  (22:31):

Yes. Yes.

Kathleen O' Grady  (22:32):

It's different now, at least to me. But when I was in Chicago, that's definitely what I felt like, these are my people.

Phil Wharton  (22:41):

Yeah, what a blessing. You were there at that time to get, it seems like there's so much juiciness of that experience from the craft, but also from the continuity of having these kindred spirits that are urging each other forward. Even if there's competition, it's still urging forward.

Kathleen O' Grady  (23:01):

Definitely.

Phil Wharton  (23:02):

Because like you said, the standard is raised because you're, and that's coming from your sports, from Marin County, from the soccer and the volleyball. It makes total sense. Now when back to New York, when you got into New York, did you have that same sense of community there in terms of the actors?

Kathleen O' Grady  (23:23):

It was my community in New York truly was people from Chicago who'd moved.

Phil Wharton  (23:29):

That makes sense.

Kathleen O' Grady  (23:32):

 And I think that's an interesting thing to sort of talk about and study for people in just about any profession, I guess, but where your community is. So if would be any kind of a regret I have about moving anywhere that I've moved, it would be to sort of somehow jump into the scene that's happening in the particular city. So when I moved from Chicago to New York, I kept up with a lot of Chicago people.

Phil Wharton  (24:08):

Good. That makes sense.

Kathleen O' Grady  (24:11):

I also met New York actors, but I wasn't both feet in the New York scene a kind of, I knew people who were so tangentially, I guess I was. But there's a difference.

Phil Wharton  (24:27):

I would imagine. Yeah, sure. Yeah. It could be separate camps, possibly kind of like in athletics.

Kathleen O' Grady  (24:34):

Exactly. Yeah. Like team sports I guess, or just a welcoming sometimes I think when you have your camp or your tribe, you kind of pull your own tribe in any of us from Chicago in New York at the time, we hung together and we created a lot of theater. We supported a lot of theater from people that were doing other things, but still in New York from Chicago. So it was just that little community probably would've been Facebook friends had Facebook been right?

Phil Wharton  (25:09):

Yeah. The internet nowadays would help with that, whereas it was it improvs and open mic might type things for actors. What about any low moments for you? Speed bumps along the road that you'd like to share?

Kathleen O' Grady  (25:32):

Well, I think the low moments came later. Speed bumps were, I had a number of near misses where it just went left instead of right. And I was in the winning seat. Things would've been very different. But I don't regret those things because one thing I always said to myself as an actor, because if you look at things rationally and statistically, you're not going to do very well because there are a million people and it is such a particular business, and you have to have this and this. You have to work this way, and you have to know these people. So if you're looking at it in terms of odds, the odds aren't great. So I kind of beat the odds in that I made a living and I made a living doing union work, so that at some point I would have a pension later.

Phil Wharton  (26:33):

Fantastic.

Kathleen O' Grady  (26:34):

 My profession was going to take care of me. But I always said to myself that I, no matter what, win, lose, or draw, no one could take away the work. So if I went into an audition and I know that I absolutely kicked it and I didn't get the role, I didn't get the role, and that's sad, but I know what I put into it, and I know that there was whatever particular reason that I might not have gotten that job, those producers, that director, that playwright, that screenwriter went, I want to see something more from her. I might call her back in for something else. And I often felt that when things didn't go my way, I felt like, well, I made an impression so no one can take away the work. That was kind of my little mantra when I would lose out on things.

Phil Wharton  (27:35):

I love that. I love that. I think that's a very powerful, because then it's like I can just imagine how the self-esteem in that inner child and innerness of the internal world can be so damaged. It is such a rejection. But as you're being centered in the craft, you're saying, look, I came and brought it, and maybe they're looking for something different, but they'll know that the next time I can come in, they can never take away the effort. And also that synergy of the effort and the craft and the experience and all those things that you were bringing in that very moment, and that's also why you got so much work. But having that mentality, it's a lot like performance anxiety, and probably for acting as well as sport. The let go. If we're not in the let go, we can't actually just relax and let the character come out that we're trying to become.

Kathleen O' Grady  (28:35):

Exactly. Exactly. And I got to say, I think that because I was a team sport player, the discipline that the collaboration.

Phil Wharton  (28:48):

Yes, the teamwork.

Kathleen O' Grady  (28:51):

And also knowing that just in terms of acting, that the odds were stacked against me. So I better do something for myself that will allow me to get up the next day. Because if everything is hanging in the balance and you don't win, then life still does go on. And it can be great.

Phil Wharton  (29:09):

Yes, the sun rises, but you'll miss the beauty of nature if you're in a gloom and doom doldrums of everything that was hanging on this one person's decision. So that's an amazing, that ability to pivot has stayed with you even in this moment. Now as you're coming into thinking of these older characters that you're sort of, I'm not really ready to, but here I am.

Kathleen O' Grady  (29:39):

Phil, the grandmas you can say it.

Phil Wharton  (29:44):

I'm still not getting that personally folks. But listen, you mentioned a little bit that you wouldn't change, and I love that so much. Is there anything in the rollback, if you had the opportunity, let's say, to redo or do something differently, is there anything that comes to mind on that?

Kathleen O' Grady  (30:09):

I do think what we were talking about a little bit earlier, seeking the center of the location or the situation I was in, had I checked or worked a little harder maybe to make some inroads in the New York theater, and film, and television scene. I am finding that here in Los Angeles. Of course, I'm at a completely different phase.

Phil Wharton  (30:37):

Absolutely.

Kathleen O' Grady  (30:37):

But I am having a hard time really hooking in to the actual sort of scene that's going on here. So every city I've lived in, whether it be San Francisco or Chicago or New York, and here in LA, each has its own individual sort of personality. And I was lucky enough to be at the right time to hook into Chicago. I wish I had done that more in New York, and I'm still looking to try and do that here in Los Angeles. I'm with a theater company and they're kind of my artistic home in LA. But again, I just it's so unusual to even read a play, a new play, which my theater company Theater of Note, here in Los Angeles does. But so many of what's written, so much of what's written doesn't take place in Los Angeles. I think it's kind of become sort of such a stand in for everywhere that in some ways doesn't have, it's unique or it's unique. Personality doesn't always sing.

Phil Wharton  (31:51):

Interesting. Yeah. So there's not really that, I always love the Faulkner analogy of when I finally wrote was in my own county is when he finally, it's a shame that they're not certain, but maybe it's homogenous, a city as a global city such as is, or that's sort of the standard that people are looking for. They're launching things that they're trying to become maybe national tours or something like that maybe, right?

Kathleen O' Grady  (32:21):

You're right. It's such a confluence of people from all over the country and the world in the world. But there is a homogeny. You don't want to necessarily be a story about LA. You want to be a universal story that can be written in Los Angeles, cast in LA, shot in Toronto, that's the nature of the beast.

Phil Wharton  (32:47):

Kind of fits the industry at this moment, maybe also. Yeah, no, that makes total sense. If we go to the anvil, like a moment or a decision, an event that sort of defined you and your destiny, anything come to mind on that?

Kathleen O' Grady  (33:07):

Well, that defined me, I think in terms of being proud of a couple of things that I've done, even some commercials that I absolutely love. There was one where my TV husband and I show up at a house with, and I bring as the wife, I bring a box of, I think it was Hershey's Chocolates. And the husband loves them so much that he grabs the chocolates out of my hand and just grabs a potted plant. And when the door opens for the homeowners, he's handing her this potted plant with roots exposed and dirt falling. I mean, that was a great commercial. And the actors and I had fun with it. There were so many great ones in terms of theater roles, almost. I think I've gotten something out of almost everything I've done. The last production I did was here in Los Angeles. It was a new play. It was in 2019, at the end of 2019 called Fruition. And it was about a plague that had been set upon the land.

Phil Wharton  (34:27):

No way.

Kathleen O' Grady  (34:29):

And looking back, we even had these scarves that we all kind of thought, oh yeah, the scarves could be used as masks because it's so horrible outside. There's acid rain. And then lo and behold, three months later.

Phil Wharton  (34:46):

Three months later...

(34:48):

Everything shut down. Yeah, right.

Kathleen O' Grady  (34:51):

Yeah.

Phil Wharton  (34:51):

Wow.

Kathleen O' Grady  (34:52):

And that was a great show because I got to do stage fights and I got to do a lot of fun things.

Phil Wharton  (34:59):

This sounds really fun to dive into that.

Kathleen O' Grady  (35:02):

I think there's an anvil or there's a turning point in almost every production or every artistic event that I've been involved in, there's been something that I can go, that happened, in almost any again I feel lucky for that. I'm not a household name, and I don't always make a lot of money, or any money in my profession, but when I do, do the work again Do the work, I get something out of it.I get to do something I've never done before.

Phil Wharton  (35:39):

That's amazing. Yeah. That's a real powerful thing to have a life that's in that this protected envelope of early thrills and enchantments, as a friend of mine, Lynn Miller says, those things are very juicy. They keep you going and wake you up in the morning. It's like a Christmas morning thing.

Kathleen O' Grady  (36:03):

No doubt. So then the question is, and this is where I have come, is what happens when it's not so juicy? What happens to the work? What happens to that self-identity as an actor in the world? That's the new pivot that's happened to me. I think it's a combination of age and opportunity. So that's where I go, okay I used to be this. I used to have this hunger, this drive, this desire. Why is that not here anymore? Is it because I'm the age I am? Is it because I'm not getting the feedback and the juice, as you say, that I used to get? I mean, what's happening there and how can I then, if that's not quite there, but I'm not ready to say that I'm done with this, what can I do to keep myself excited and creative and maybe do something every day that I can bear doing? So that's when I started studying landscape design.

Phil Wharton  (37:23):

Is that in that moment, because I really have these amazing memories of you on that stone wall at the house where it was such a beautiful place over there in Suffern, and seeing you in the garden, and just feeling that joy that you were getting also from being a horticulturalist that you studied for the Master's Degree at Columbia. And so now you have these two loves and there's sort of that toggling between the two.

Kathleen O' Grady  (37:57):

Exactly. Exactly. And I did sort of the same things, like you're saying, oh I love talking about the Suffern house, and it was so great when you guys come visit.

Phil Wharton  (38:07):

 It's so beautiful.

Kathleen O' Grady  (38:08):

But that was where I was able to get dirty and figure things out. And again, I kept failing up or not failing at all. I would plunk something in and put a grouping together, and it worked, but I didn't understand why. So that's why then I went, became a Master Gardener in New York State, and then took it even further and went to Columbia for a landscape design degree, because I wanted to understand why things were, I didn't know the language, but I was able to communicate in that language. And what was so cool about going to Columbia was completely different.

Phil Wharton  (38:51):

So different.

Kathleen O' Grady  (38:52):

So different. And as an actor, we communicate in words and in action. So the communication in design, architecture, landscape design is through pictures. So it's drawings, it's plant selection its focal point. So what I learned, and again, I had a really great teacher that became a true mentor to me there, Richard Aven, who's now, I believe he's the head of the landscape architecture department at Rutgers, he saw something in me, and he had me be his teaching assistant after I graduated.

Phil Wharton  (39:39):

Oh, that's fantastic.

Kathleen O' Grady  (39:40):

I did that for a couple years. But what I finally was able to hear it when I was talking to a student in my capacity as the teaching assistant, and she was in the finance world, and she was having a real hard time getting her, trying to tell what she wanted to say in pictures.

Phil Wharton  (40:01):

Articulating.

Kathleen O' Grady  (40:02):

Yeah, exactly. So we were talking and I said, I, you know what? I think it is what a plan a landscape design plan is. It's the narrative. The language is your focal point, it's your grove of trees, it's your path. So the language was different, but we're still telling a story. So I just watched, it was so cool because I watched her eyes go, I mean she got it.

Phil Wharton  (40:32):

Yeah.

Kathleen O' Grady  (40:33):

That aha moment where she I think.

Phil Wharton  (40:35):

Yeah, you're bringing all that experience from being an actor, from observation of the human experience into the physical world and horticulture in her design and beauty.

Kathleen O' Grady  (40:47):

Yes, and then being able to articulate it to another non-speaker in a way that she understood how to tell the story. It's all about that.

Phil Wharton  (40:58):

That's right. That's right. And I think it brings us to your journey. What's most important to you now? What's the road ahead look like for you, Kathleen what's next?

Kathleen O' Grady  (41:12):

Well, again, I think I'm at a precipice a little bit. I don't want to not be an actor, but it hasn't sustained me in quite a while. I mean, I get lucky, and I have a couple good years where I make my insurance and I add to a pension, but it's happening less and less. But I still have a theatrical connection here. I've started to do some producing work and the're aspects of that that I love. Also organization, and it's also functionality and keeping the wheels kind of turning. And that's fun to do.

Phil Wharton  (41:57):

It's kind of landscaping as well get direction, maybe a bit placement, the art of placement. Exactly.

Kathleen O' Grady  (42:06):

You're right. I think it's design.

Phil Wharton  (42:07):

It's huge with your experience. If you look at the multitude of the talents and skills.

Kathleen O' Grady  (42:14):

And the thing that as I have sort of taken my horticulture and design journey, the thing that really really is important to me is I again, and Oh, Phil, you're blowing my mind with this conversation, because I think it has to do with the actual reading of the space. Be in the space. Because a landscape in New York or Pennsylvania is not the same as a landscape in Southern California, which is not the same as Northern California or South Carolina or Alaska. So you have to be in the space, I think it's called, in situ, you to be in the space. So right now, my focus truly is native planting and native design. So in Southern California, it's native and drought tolerant.

Phil Wharton  (43:15):

Perfect.

Kathleen O' Grady  (43:17):

It's trying to use materials, recycling materials, or trying to use materials that are less impactful to the environment. Or if you do have to do something, then plant three or four extra trees just to sort of offset it. But it's really becoming much more, not only about design and about beauty, and about use of space, but it's a bit of stewardship to leave a better footprint than when I got here.

Phil Wharton  (43:53):

That's right.

Kathleen O' Grady  (43:56):

So in this very very rapidly changing climate, in this rapidly changing world, it's important to me to do the things that are right for the particular place. So that's been just the difference between, New York native, and California native. It is a chasm. It's a world. It's a whole entire 3000 miles of difference.

Phil Wharton  (44:22):

But it's the ultimate be here now. And as Wendell Berry would say, it's the use of good land. If we love something, if we love the land, then we're going to pay more attention to the land, and then we're going to want to regenerate the soil, and then we're going to want to use the species that are native. That makes sense with the tolerance of the drought and also the permaculture of that. So you're diving into that whole, that's what we do here on our farm is the horses eat organic, and then we get the manure and we spread around and we have new nitrogen to the soil, and it's just part of the yeah.

Kathleen O' Grady  (45:07):

Right.

(45:11):

What I'm kind of becoming more and more interested in lately are these beneficial insects, which are so, they're so small, you forget about insects, but boy, if our bee populations are threatened, we are in trouble.

Phil Wharton  (45:27):

All those cell phone towers and all that. So it's sort of, yeah, we have a nematode company just right down the road here that sends 'em all over the country. So turn you on to them. BioLogic. Yeah.

Kathleen O' Grady  (45:43):

That's really cool. And a big thing out here is planting native milkweeds for the monarchs, because this is definitely a way station for monarch butterflies as they make their way down south to Mexico. So it's just like, it's little small steps that, as you well know, that they might not even pay off in terms of you get that bountiful green beans and all the delicious food that you, that's even which, and I don't have any food production here except for a lemon tree, which is awesome.

Phil Wharton  (46:19):

That is awesome.

Kathleen O' Grady  (46:21):

You can't have one there baby!

Phil Wharton  (46:24):

No, that's right. Love that.

Kathleen O' Grady  (46:25):

 But just to know that this plant that I put in is going to help the bees or the butterflies, that is such a joy to me. So that is, in terms of my design and in terms of any kind of interest in horticulture, I think it's really, it's about native, it's about returning the land to function as it did, as best as it can in this very changing world.

Phil Wharton  (46:59):

And that's so needed in a big city like Los Angeles. I think to have these little oasis points there and to be thinking about landscape design, not in this sort of big corporate idea, but into okay we're going to regenerate these areas and make them places of beauty, that make sense for generations to come. I think that's really beautiful that your eye is now onto that. Also along with, and to me, it seems to fit with the craft as an actor and also as the landscape designer.

Kathleen O' Grady  (47:38):

You're right. I mean I don't find them, I find them kind of sister passions in some ways. Again in terms of the design and storytelling, but also in terms of the art of the telling a story on stage or in film, and the art of a garden. But then that goes even deeper about the art of the environment, of the actual sort of plot of land.

Phil Wharton  (48:07):

That's right.

Kathleen O' Grady  (48:08):

Because that has its own story. And just try and support it in any way we can.

Phil Wharton  (48:15):

When we look back, we call the slipstream. If we imagine a jet of your life kind of going through and we look back at any parting gems of advice or wisdom to leave behind with us today.

Kathleen O' Grady  (48:30):

Well, I don't necessarily think I have the room yet to impart advice, but I do think that whatever it was that made me know the importance and the value of the work that I put in as a driving force, that has stuck with me. And I think it can keep you healthy when times are rough and things aren't going your way, and you're struggling, whether it be to make rent, or to did have a very close call with something that you wanted and it didn't go your way. Just having, for me anyway having that core of look, I put the work in. I know that I brought it. I know that I have it. It was up to them to choose it. Or not. So that's what keeps me going anyway.

Phil Wharton  (49:30):

That makes sense. Even when no one's watching or no one may see me in the production, I know what I can bring to the audition, to the craft of behind the scenes of preparation.

Kathleen O' Grady  (49:44):

And that's the fun of it. That's the practice. That's putting the effort into getting yourself better and then being ready to show up when the gun goes off or when the curtain rises.

Phil Wharton  (49:59):

Yes, Yes.

Kathleen O' Grady  (50:00):

So yeah. Isn't it all just this beautiful sort of attempt at keeping true to yourself if it is something that you love and if you keep doing the things you love, I think we are all getting older. We're all going to get to an end point, but why not have as much story, as much fun, as much passion as it's possible on the journey.

Phil Wharton  (50:31):

Well said. Well said. Kathleen, what a wonderful blessing to see you, and thank you for sharing your story here on Intrinsic Drive. We just so loved having you today.

Kathleen O' Grady  (50:43):

Thank you so much. I so appreciate it, and it's wonderful to see you.

Speaker 3 (50:47):

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