Practical Access Podcast

S:2 E:8: Laughter guest appearance Cheryl Hines

May 20, 2020 Season 2 Episode 8
Practical Access Podcast
S:2 E:8: Laughter guest appearance Cheryl Hines
Show Notes Transcript

CELEBRITY ALERT!  Drs. Rebecca Hines invites her sister UCF graduate and movie star and producer Cheryl Hines to discuss an important topic in these times of stress - laughter.  Dr. Hines and Dieker, UCF Faculty members, ask for advice for both teachers, parents, and individuals with disabilities from Cheryl Hines https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0385644/ how to use, understand, and learn to laugh as both individuals and as teachers and parents.  The Hines sisters are always a good laught when they are together, and Cheryl's expertise in this episode is a gift to think about the importance of laughter and deciding how much oxygen to give the hecklers in our world. We hope you enjoy this special episode and thank you Cheryl Hines for helping us all fill the world with a little more laughter. Remember questions can be shared on Twitter @accesspractical.  Follow us on itunes or iheart podcasts. 

Lisa Dieker :

Welcome to practical access. I'm Lisa Dieker.

Rebecca Hines :

And I'm Rebecca Hines

Lisa Dieker :

And Becky, I think we have a unique topic and a unique guest today. What

Rebecca Hines :

are you thinking? Well, we do, Lisa, you know, we've been talking this season about soft skills and those skills that are important for students like lifetime skills. And we've talked a little bit about different employment transition, those types of things. But I thought today we'll take advantage of a special special guests that we have available. And that is my sister, Cheryl Hines. Now, some of you may know Cheryl from HBO's, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Cheryl Hines :

That's right, I play Cheryl David on Curb Your Enthusiasm. And I also study impact improv at the Groundlings theater in Los Angeles. So, that's my background is mostly comedy and improv and acting.

Lisa Dieker :

So,

Unknown Speaker :

so, no, go ahead, Lisa.

Unknown Speaker :

Yeah, so we were thinking about, you know, our thoughts about teachers working with kids with disabilities in general, but also parents, and one of the first things that you're great at is making people laugh. And, and I was just kind of curious, if you could help us think a little bit as the teachers and parents how to help kids understand when laughter is meant in fun. Maybe when laughter feels too personal? How do you help people think about that in some of the training that you've done?

Unknown Speaker :

Well, I think in your case, in, in teaching, and with kids, I would advise to, as we say, in comedy, boom. So I'm sure it depends, you know, from case to case, from, from child to child, if they can understand, you know, humor, or when it's when it's when it's a joke, or when it's, for some reason being used in a wrong way. But, I think, I think if you stick to it being about yourself, maybe, you know, oh, I, I wore two socks that don't match today. I did a great job this morning. So it's more, if you're making fun of yourself, you can connect with other people, and they see the human side of you. And, and they can automatically they automatically know it's you're not laughing at someone else, you have bet yourself. And so it's, it's never mistaken, I should say never, but almost never mistaken for making fun of someone else. If you're making fun of yourself or your situation, whatever that is, people can connect with you. I love that

Unknown Speaker :

girl. laughs Yeah, that's a good point. Because I think a lot of times I know in your work, it's on curb and other places, you use things like irony and sarcasm in particular. Sarcasm is actually a humor device that doesn't play well in school. And I really, you know, teachers sometimes don't understand that there are some students who are very, very literal. So I just kind of wanted to point that out. Because some of the things that we find funny, in our everyday life aren't necessarily appropriate for the classroom. Tell me a little bit I know, talk a little bit about about the way that you use those nonverbals to communicate either warmth, or comedy to an audience. So if I'm a teacher, I'm standing in front of kids, what am I going to do to communicate those feelings and connect with the audience?

Unknown Speaker :

Well, when you first get in front of anyone, even if you smile, it's a, it's an emotion that someone can understand and connect with. So people are looking to see if you know, are your arms folded and you're hunched over and you're acting like you don't want to be there, then then they're going to receive that signal and think, Oh, you don't want to be here. I don't want to be here either. I don't want to hear anything you're gonna say. So if you can take a breath. And what I do before I go into almost any situation, especially where I know I'm going to have to perform or I'm going to have to, to interview with someone I don't know I will make a fist with both of my hands and boil them up and I'll scratch my face up really tight and I'll squeeze my hands for about five seconds and then I let it go. And you feel a relief and you feel just you're at ease with yourself. So people can sense that when when you walk into a room or you're on screen. They can feel if you are at ease with yourself and they can be at ease while they're listening to you and watching you.

Unknown Speaker :

I love to your theme seems to be at ease with yourself. I think that's a great theme for laughter. And I've never really thought about teaching a kid to, you know, somebody makes fun of me laugh at myself first, don't give them the chance to not say this is funny. And I think that's some great advice for families to remember. How do you how do you suggest that people that are really struggling just to laugh? What are some good ways just to get a good laugh? Because I don't know of anybody who can laugh better than the Hines sisters, I can't be around the both of you and not have a good laugh, always. So what is it? What's the secret behind just a good family last?

Unknown Speaker :

Well, if you know I, I'm doing a talk show on zoom, it's live. And I want my show to be very professional, I want it to be good. I wanted to have, you know, these great guests that are taking time to be on my show. And then I'll have, you know, my husband walk through the shot in the background, you know, in his boxer shorts. And I have two choices, right, I can either take a moment to get mad at him and derail the show and be angry about the situation or take a breath, laugh at moment, because I'm sure everybody has experienced something similar. And that's what makes this moment unique. Like you were saying, so if you have choices, you either laugh, or you get mad. And so we find life is a lot more fun. If you just laugh at that, and let it go through, you're also able to be present more because it takes so much energy to be angry. And to sustain that feeling and that emotion, that it's exhausting. And it's tiring. But if you can find a way to laugh, move on, I think you'll enjoy around you

Unknown Speaker :

a little more. And I think that's true. Sure. I think that's that's we definitely grew up with the ability to to make a choice to be happy to make a choice to find the the humor in something, even if it seemed like a dark time or something a low point momentarily. When when you think about performing, let me ask you again, let's let's say a teacher who is trying to teach and they really want to be able to make those choices. Have you ever been in a setting where you were doing something live? And you had anybody like a heckler or somebody doing something unexpected? Like how do we handle those unexpected real time things when it's not our family? When it's somebody who you don't even know what their intent is? Sometimes, because as a teacher, sometimes we feel a little bit attacked so great. What would you say, you know, how do we how do we handle the hecklers show?

Unknown Speaker :

Well, you know, and there are two ways to go out. So depending on the situation, one is to ignore that person and not give them more oxygen, because that might be what they're looking for is just to take over the space. So if you that, that's one way to go. And the other way to go is to give them all of the oxygen. So if you stop everything down, and say, okay, Johnny, you've got the floor. We're talking about whatever you're talking about, you know, today, we're talking about manners today. So here's your chance to tell everybody what you know about manners. Sometimes, if when you give that person the spotlight, they shrink quickly. So the those have been my experiences. So under

Unknown Speaker :

sound right out in line with the classroom. And so I just have one last question. And that is, if you could give a word of advice to parents who are stressed, who are struggling, who maybe want to laugh, what is what is something improvisationally they could do at home with their kids to make the world a little bit lighter and brighter right now?

Unknown Speaker :

Well, I mean, we do warm up exercises, that just if it you know, you just throw out an emotion. And everybody does it for three seconds. It's like, but you do it from on a scale of one to 1010 you do it a 10. So it's like, everybody's happy. Everybody's angry. I'm so mad to you. Courts sort of go through these emotions and you have, you know, everybody in the room or every you know, your family doing all this it really, it somehow is a release and people bond together because they're having fun and you're being silly. It's really fun to be silly and not you know, not worry about it too much we used to do. This is a part of my training but we used to do, we would play ha, did you ever play ha? and everybody, everybody lies on the floor and one person lies down into the other person lies with the back of their head on somebody's stomach. And then the other person lies on the back of their head on somebody's stomach. And then the first person says ha, second person says, haha, the third person says Hahaha, and you keep going. And then of course, it just ends up being silly, ridiculous bundle of people lying on the floor laughing.

Unknown Speaker :

Well, that's that's the that's the secret to Hollywood success. You guys.

Cheryl Hines :

I don't know why. Maybe, because I put.

Unknown Speaker :

So Cheryl, as we're wrapping up, I just wanted to ask you because you have trained people in comedy classes. And again, I'm just going to bring it back to the teachers for a second. And we do know, you know, humor is is a welcomed trait by teachers, but everybody's not funny. Can you? Can you make yourself more funny? Did you have students who weren't funny? And if you did, like, what what advice? Would you give people who are like, yeah, I want to be those things. But it's really not me. And I don't love making a fool of myself. So like, what are some some low hanging fruits there, they could grab to just warm up or change or lighten up the setting? Well, it's,

Unknown Speaker :

it's like I was saying before self deprecating humor is a good way to go. And it could be something, you know, small, it could be. You know, I don't know why that what that is, I forgot to brush my teeth today. So nobody gets close to me, whatever that is, that's just pretty. Okay. Straight out of, well, it's like it's a do, it's, for me. I think if you're, if you don't think you're funny, you probably can appreciate who you are. And there's so much online, there's so much where if something strikes you as funny, you can say, on the way over here, I saw a guy walking his dog and the dog was even wear this mask. So that's kind of funny, it's a way to connect. It's not on you, you don't have to be funny, but you, but you can, you know, have a light moment with someone. And and can, you know, convey warmth, that people will feel and if you're like we were saying it's an emotional connection, if you're laughing, if you're smiling, if you're talking about a funny dog or something that you saw, people will connect with that and respond because they'll be able to relate to it.

Unknown Speaker :

And I think I think I just really appreciate not only your time, but just that whole theme of making it about myself and relationships. And I think that's, that's really what you do so very well. So thank you for your expertise. And thank you for joining us on practical access. Thank you. What are we thinking about for next time, at

Unknown Speaker :

least I think next time we're going to we're going to dig a little deeper into creativity in general and think about, you know, what can we do to add that layer to our classrooms?

Unknown Speaker :

Well, thank you again, Cheryl. Thank you, Becky. And please send us a Tweet @accesspractical if you have questions.

Cheryl Hines :

Thank you, Lisa and Becky