December 5, 2023
UPDATE
Apple Podcasts names Wiser Than Me the 2023 Present of the 12 months
Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Lemonada Media’s founders replicate on a standout first season
On the outset of Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus from Lemonada Media, Hollywood legend Jane Fonda recalled the sudden revelation she had on the eve of her 59th birthday: that she was coming into her life’s third and remaining act.
“You know the way necessary third acts are,” Fonda, now 85, advised host Julia Louis-Dreyfus early on within the episode. “They will make sense out of the primary two, proper? They’re essential — it’s type of a legacy that you simply’re going to go away behind.”
Proper out of the gate, Wiser Than Me attracted an enormous viewers on Apple Podcasts, spending 29 days straight because the No. 1 present within the U.S. total — a feat that has but to be topped in 2023.
Apple is proud to rejoice Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus with the Apple Podcasts Award, a recognition given every year to honor a present that demonstrates high quality and innovation in podcasting. The present’s reputation and accolades are a testomony to its refreshingly genuine strategy to amplifying the voices of older, wiser girls — a demographic not usually centered in mainstream tradition — and inspiring intergenerational listening.
Over the course of the present’s 10-episode debut season, completed actor and comic Louis-Dreyfus employs her signature wit to mine priceless nuggets of recommendation from girls who’ve lived lengthy sufficient and properly sufficient to really have perspective on all of it.
Starting a brand new chapter of her personal at 62, the first-time podcast host brings personalities like singer Darlene Love, 82, and creator Amy Tan, 71, to the microphone for far-ranging conversations that evoke laughter, tears, and nearly each emotion in between.
“All of those girls have demonstrated reside a life,” Louis-Dreyfus says of her visitors. “That doesn’t imply they didn’t make errors, however there’s one thing about being older the place maybe you are feeling not as protecting when it comes to sharing. And so I’ve taken benefit of the intimacy that provides. That availability to be actual and to be open is a good present.”
A giant a part of Wiser Than Me’s attraction is Louis-Dreyfus’s willingness to be playful and stretch the bounds of the standard interview-podcast format, explains Stephanie Wittels Wachs, cofounder and chief artistic officer of Lemonada Media, the podcast’s residence community. “Julia by no means needs to have a typical dialog,” she says. “She needs to play and weave and bob, and do all of the enjoyable issues that you simply count on from one thing sudden.”
Lemonada cofounder and CEO Jessica Cordova Kramer credit the accessibility of Apple Podcasts with serving to the present attain new audiences. “Apple does a terrific job of showcasing numerous reveals of various varieties, following no matter’s taking place on this planet and serving to folks uncover new issues — not simply the most well-liked issues,” explains Cordova Kramer. “We love our Lemonada Premium channel as a result of we have now an enormous slate of reveals now, and for us, that has been an enormous translator of viewers overlap.”
After its wildly profitable first season, Wiser Than Me is gearing up for extra — Lemonada lately introduced a second season set to premiere in spring 2024.
The present’s natural stream and off-the-cuff construction are finest exemplified by a second a mere quarter-hour into that very first episode the place a bomb cyclone interrupts Louis-Dreyfus’s Zoom connection, forcing her to reschedule the remainder of the interview with Fonda. As an alternative of modifying the mishap out in post-production, the podcast leans into the second, taking listeners behind the scenes as Louis-Dreyfus’s recorder continues to roll.
“That’s why the present is so actual. You’re coping with any individual like Julia, who’s so well-known and beloved, however her web goes out, and it provided this wonderful peek behind the curtains,” Wittels Wachs says. “I believe having that as episode one made it so accessible for listeners, and that power simply stored going all through the collection.”
No subject is off-limits for the present’s visitors, who gamely strategy the mic with an unguarded vulnerability as they focus on their highest highs and their lowest lows, together with weighty matters like intercourse, divorce, politics, sexism within the office, demise, and the bodily realities of getting old.
“The magic of it’s that Julia is open about her personal journey in methods she by no means had been earlier than, so you’re getting this kind of reciprocity,” provides Cordova Kramer. (In the course of the present’s first season, Louis-Dreyfus opened up with visitors about her wrestle after dropping a being pregnant, in addition to her expertise being identified with breast most cancers in 2017.)
The Lemonada workforce explains that the medium of podcasting lent itself particularly properly to the type of conversations Louis-Dreyfus was serious about having. “These girls don’t want to fret about hair and make-up,” says Cordova Kramer. “They will go surfing from their bedrooms, their resort rooms — wherever they’re of their busy lives — they usually can have this stunning dialog with this unimaginable interviewer that’s method much less guarded and permits for rather more authenticity.”
One particularly memorable second for Louis-Dreyfus was sitting down for a dialog with certainly one of her lifelong comedy influences for the season’s remaining episode.
“Carol Burnett was an enormous a part of my life rising up in a method, with out me even realizing she was an enormous a part of my life,” Louis-Dreyfus explains. “She was part of the material of our tradition. And as a lady, she actually modeled a feminine energy that kind of acquired into my bones with out my even realizing it.”
With its unapologetic, uncooked discussions, Wiser Than Me is inspiring folks of their 20s, 30s, and past to rethink their attitudes towards getting older.
“There’s a variety of worry round getting old, and I believe the podcast is making folks enthusiastic about it. It’s making it much less scary. It’s making it accessible,” says Wittels Wachs. “There’s tangible knowledge that we hope folks will take away from it. After which there’s that inspirational knowledge persons are getting that’s identical to, ‘Oh, getting old. Oh my god — that’s superior. I wish to do this. I wish to be like these girls.’”
Usually, a few of the present’s most heart-warming moments come courtesy of the post-interview epilogue the place Louis-Dreyfus calls her mom Judith, 89, to debrief and proceed the dialog.
“Judith is a gem — a priceless gem. She’s unimaginable, and he or she’s everybody’s favourite,” Wittels Wachs says. “Julia is simply consuming it up, and so is Judith. I believe it truly is encouraging a type of intergenerational dialogue. And that’s actually what we needed — for ladies of their 20s to speak to their moms and their grandmothers about their experiences.”
Take pleasure in A Peek Behind the Scenes to listen to Julia meet up with Judith about Wiser Than Me being acknowledged because the Present of the 12 months. Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for bonus episodes with every visitor from season 1, and comply with Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on Apple Podcasts to be notified when season 2 premieres in spring 2024.
Press Contacts
Zach Kahn
Apple
Apple Media Helpline
