ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Well, it’s going better than yesterday, I was evacuated from our house, we’re in a fire zone.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Yeah, I actually wrote an op/ed that was in the LA Times today about the experience titled, "Flee the Fire, Pack the Panties." I forgot to pack anything of use.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: [laughs] Exactly, that’s what your mother always says.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: It was very intense; we had the police mandatory evacuations, so very exciting.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Oh yeah, that was just one small glimpse into what it would be like if you were suddenly made homeless by a natural disaster. I think the fire may have been accidental. They don’t know yet. I was just visiting my fireman up the street to say "Thank you." This is what I do, I wrote in the LA Times today: this is my Fired!, taking these situations and trying to find some humor in them. So I took my evacuation vacation and turned it into a viewer piece in particular.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: The comedy coping mechanism.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Actually Freud said humor is a high ordered coping mechanism, which is what the therapist in my film talked about. Then the rabbi in my film, in my DVD extras for Fired!, I’ve included some other discussion that he had, he’s also a therapist and he talks about his Jungian ideal of what Jung said. It’s a philosophy he spouted upon. You have to have the volitional acceptance of the obligatory, which means that in the face of events that happened you must find a way to make your peace with them and you will have psychological health. He speaks about the firing experience in that way, he says that fighting it just doesn’t help.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Yes, unless you’re a whistle blower and trying to bring justice to a situation, I think that’s different.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Exactly, we’re trying to bring attention to a really important issue. Even that, that’s taking a positive approach, a proactive, positive approach to do something about a situation that you think is unfair, instead of just massively drinking and hanging out in your pajamas, which is so much fun, for a day or two.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: [laughs] Well, yeah, a few weeks, but eventually you’ve got to get out of the house again.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Thank you for asking that question. The funny thing is, I think in every of the very funny stories that were done live, the intent was humor in the face of such a serious subject. There are actually a lot of very serious themes, one of my favorite stories was Paul F. Tompkins’ story that he performed live. "They expect you to steal in retail, that’s why they pay you so little." That’s a very serious thing but he’s using humor to discuss it. I think that so many of us, and I’ve certainly worked really crappy retail jobs, I’m guilty of that. I think everything is serious, everything that you’re making fun of in comedy are very serious issues. In my book, I do include this also, I include these very funny stories and then I have these statistics that are kind of scary about the employment situation. As I was making the film, the more I thought about it, what I had to do was recreate my thought process. That is at least the way I choice to make this film. I chose to show how the more I thought about this great experience of being fired and what it meant to people, truly my film was about coping on an emotional level when you’ve been fired. I really started to think about the economy and sort of this new paradigm of work, working in America that Robert Reich talks about, how people have to go from job to job and have to be so flexible but within that this can be a very cold system that doesn’t really take into account real people.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: So I felt I needed to address that and yet I still wanted the film to basically be an uplifting film. My goal with the whole project was that when I got fired I was so depressed and felt like I was so alone and such a loser and when I started hearing these stories, they made me laugh and feel better. So I thought, if someone else was fired, and a friend gave this film or they went out and got it, they would feel so much better, like I did. I really wanted people to feel better. I could have made a completely serious film, a certainly had the footage to support that but then you would have been watching the evening news. It’s a very challenging time for many people in this economy. I really was conflicted. What came out was the film progresses to this greater consciousness and it wasn’t really to reach more people, it’s actually sort of been a bone of contention for people who have loved the film. Some people have loved that part, or they liked the comedy better, some people like that part better, it’s polarized people. It’s one of those things that if I would have made it strictly a comedy I think that would have been less confusing but as a citizen in the United States right now I really felt that I wanted to address that, I think I made the unpopular choice.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Yes, it’s funny that you said that, that’s how I feel. In my own personal experience, I live in Los Angeles, I don’t consider myself living in Hollywood. First of all I’m a mom; I’m just a working person that goes from job to job. I think that there are six people that were in the cast of Friends who never have to work again and lead a really insular life. I don’t, by any stretch, lead an insular life, my parents are both in their 70’s and they work, and I’ve worked all my life. It’s just funny because I think people have this perception of Hollywood in a much different way then the way I’ve had my experience. Which is, I go from job to job and I worry about my pension and my house payment. And yet I do know that I’ve been very privileged to earn a good living as an actor. Personally, retelling my Woody Allen story was a way of getting other people to tell me their stories.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: I certainly, after initially being upset about being fired by Woody Allen, I was certainly aware very quickly that my story is so much smaller than the bigger picture of what is going on in America. It’s funny because I consider myself "Hollywood adjacent" [laughs]. It definitely does surprise some people, and I think "My God, do they have any idea how people really live?", which is very different then what people have an impression of how people live. I certainly live in the world, besides my own firing place. So many different people in my family have been affected by different layoffs. One of my uncle’s was laid off by Citicorp recently, and I don’t know anyone in the country who’s not affected. Every time I meet someone they’re like, "My mother was just laid off," or whatever. It’s just everywhere.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: The funny thing is though, I think that we personally haven’t caught up. Maybe the people in their 20’s have but the rest of us are sort of stuck between this idea of still looking for some sort of job security.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Right. Someone that I think has really addressed the issues so well is Barbara Ehrenreich, who wrote Nickel and Dimed [On (Not) Getting By in America] and Bait and Switch [A (Futile) Pursuit of the American Dream]. Barbara and I regularly make appearances now, and talk about these issues facing labor…. I’ve joined the advisory board of her organization, United Professionals, which you can check out on the web, it’s a non-partisan advocacy group, particularly for white-collar workers who have found themselves disenfranchised by the current economy, and it’s a huge part of the story of employment in America right now.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: No she was not. I certainly was aware of her work and had been influenced by her writing, but I had never meet Barbara until I met her at a progressive conference in D.C. a year ago. Then I teamed up with her and like I said, we make appearances together. We’re going to be doing house parties with my film all over the country to help raise awareness for United Professionals, and for these issues. Her books are…she’s a very biting, dry wit, but they’re very serious. So if you’re looking for the very serious version of Fired!, you can turn to Barbara Ehrenreich.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: It’s really been an unexpected thing for me. Why I continued with the whole project was one of these shows I was doing, it came like a revival meeting. People really seemed to respond and want to have a place to laugh and blow off some steam about their jobs. I have met now many, many unemployed people, or underemployed I should say, there’s unemployed and then there are underemployed people that are going from job to job, and the jobs they are getting aren’t really using their skills. And they tell me these stories all over the country and it’s really fascinating.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Oh absolutely. The thing is that I have a little bit of a cynical nature and at a certain point in your life it’s really hard when someone says "You need to improve your skill set."

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: It is very true that there are some people who really need to reassess what they are doing in their career. For instance, if you are working in the manufacturing sector, it’s time for you to get a new skill set, because jobs in the manufacturing sector have really, really disappeared at an alarming rate. That’s people that work for companies like GM, Kimberley-Clark, people who work in manufacturing.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: That’s true and also with greater efficiency companies just aren’t employing as many people. This is someone who truly does need to improve their job skill set. I personally found some of what was being discussed at the out placement services, to be just a load of crap. [laughs] There is a certain kind of "Blame the victim" consciousness that, "You need to do this, this and this," "Stay flexible," but there are plenty of people that are trying plenty hard enough as it is and they really need a different kind of help. For instance, in the DVD extras, Robert Reich talks about redesigning the unemployment insurance to include some sort of wage insurance so you don’t have people lose their houses while they are looking for a new job. So there are some things that a person can’t do without real help. I do believe that we as a country have banded together to form a government to help raise up the living standards of other people.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: This is not a private industry, type of industry. Somebody needs to step in and help those that really need help. Now, that being said, for many people, and I’ve documented this in my book and in my film, being fired can be a tremendous opportunity for reassessing what your doing starting a different career, finding a better opportunity for yourself. For so many people it really can be a truly positive experience after the initial shock and awe experience.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: [laughs] Right. I have so many fantastic and favorite stories. I think someone like Andy Borowitz, after being told that "We didn’t get Tootie," and not succeeding on The Facts of Life, he certainly went on to great success. Now he has a career he really loves, doing the Borowitz Report, being a political writer, he is just an awfully happy guy now. I do think that there is some really great power in personal testimony, just the real people who…. I don’t necessarily have the most glitzy people but really hard working people in the entertainment industry talk about how they picked themselves up from failure or perceived failure over the years. I think it is inspiring; at least it was to me. And I think that for people that don’t work in the entertainment industry, they don’t always realize how much incredible rejection you face. When Jeff Garlin talks about getting fired in the middle of his act in Tahoe, and if you’re a Jeff Garlin fan, he’s also a friend of mine but I’m also a huge fan, I love what he does on Curb Your Enthusiasm and all the movies he has made. To think that he has gotten fired left and right and you pick yourself up and you regroup and keep going. That to me is very inspiring.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Show business is its own beast. There’s something that Robert Reich says that I think is very interesting. "All industries are becoming more and more like show business, where you have to network and you have to constantly be reinventing yourself." It’s a funny thing but I think it is really true, I think there really is something to be learned from this field that we’re in were rejection is a way of life. I just finished editing the DVD and I can’t remember if this is in the extras or the film itself, he talks about how for some people this is going to be fantastic, they love to move from job to job, this is great. But for people who have been, like your mom and my mom, at a job for years and years, this is hard to imagine; going from job to job to job. There is something to be learned from people who do this for a living.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Yeah. In the first part of the film he was talking about working in the sort of new paradigm of working, in the segment that’s inter cut with me and Ben Stein. There’s something that Fred Willard said, "There’s two ways you can go: ‘I’m going to double down and try harder,’ when you’re faced with the situation and it can be an inevitable situation in the working world." I know so few people who have never had an opportunity to be fired. You’ve got to somehow find a way to turn it into an opportunity. Like I said, there are several parts of that one, the personal challenge of getting yourself back up again. Something Robert Reich had said, "If you believe that we’re not living in a jungle, we need a well functioning government," and I have to say I agree with that.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Well, Ben Stein said that it is really hard to think why our government, which is basically us, is bailing companies out of bankruptcy, when they are not holding up their end of the bargain with their employees. Because what are companies, are we just caring about the benefits to the stockholders and CEO’s or aren’t companies made up of people? Particularly if we are helping them out, and we are by granting them bankruptcy. So why are we helping these companies to continue if they are not helping their employees? We are a nation primarily of employees.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: I don’t always talk about this question. It’s funny cause I actually had footage of this in the film where I showed Judy Gold, my interpretation of the character I was playing and he confirmed that I "Might have looked retarded." I forgot to mention to Mr. Allen that I was playing my character as inebriated and I take responsibility for that because I was too damn intimidated by him to mention the fact that I was playing my person inebriated. That may have made a little more sense. Instead I just ended up looking retarded; I chalk that all up to experience. [laughing] Improving my skill set has now included "Mention to director that I’m playing inebriated."

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: This was the mistake I’ve made, and I’ve learned.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: The play came first. The play was just a series of readings off Broadway and here in LA and they were tremendously received. It was a fantastic, really fun experience, the first that I ever produced. Then I was writing the book and making the film at the same time. For me as a writer, my dream my entire life has been to publish a book. I loved editing, it was so much fun, and I had a fantastic time. At the same time I was making the film and I have to say it was the most challenging thing I’ve ever done and also really loved it. I was trying to figure out how to weigh issues. I made so many mistakes, two thousand mistakes. Here’s an example of several of them. I keep trying to think of how to put people in different situations, I don’t want them to be just talking heads. I thought, I’ll invite Fred and Harry to get in a hot tub with me at a friend of mine’s house. So meanwhile, I get there and Harry doesn’t want to go in the hot tub and I thought "Oh crap," and then we shoot the scene and later I thought, "Oh my God, people are going to think I’m this rich Hollywood actress with a hot tub." I would love to have a hot tub, unfortunately I don’t. It never occurred to me that it would read like that. Then Tate Donovan told me his story about being replaced with Matthew Broderick. I loved that story and could not afford to shoot with actors so I had to have my son’s art teacher make puppets. And the PA in the film is my son’s babysitter. It was a very homey film. We would be sitting on the streets of downtown LA, the ones that were doubling as New York, with my son’s babysitter and the craft services was in the trunk of my station wagon. It was really fun. Making a documentary film is something that you only do if you are completely obsessed, it’s not a money making proposition, maybe three people in the world have made a lot of money making documentary films. You do it because you get obsessed by a topic and you can’t not do it, and that’s what happened to me.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: In Santa Cruz?

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Unfortunately I don’t know a single thing about that, it was arranged by the distributor of my film. I’m absolutely sad that I don’t know about that but we did have something that was really fun. The premiere was actually a party thrown for us by The Nation Magazine and United Professionals and we had a bunch of labor people there. We also had a screening in Washington D.C. thrown by a number of [labor groups] and that was really fun. I’m a union member myself and I was thrilled to be hosted and it was a free screening for members, and it was awesome.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Yes, it was. I hope to do more of that. I want to make the film available to people, particularly my goal is to reach beyond my community, to reach people like those I spotlight in my film who I consider the real stars of my film; the people that I met at the job fairs.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Oh, yes. There were so many stories, I could have put so many of his funny stories in there. Regular people have funnier stories then the stories you even hear from comedians. The film could have been 5 hours long I had so many stories, great stories.

ANNABELLE GURWITCH: Now I just realized something, I didn’t include more of those in my extras. I don’t know what I was thinking, I ran out of time and money.