{"id":16973,"date":"2025-07-23T02:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-23T02:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16973\/"},"modified":"2025-07-23T02:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-23T02:58:10","slug":"christine-baranski-answers-the-maria-bamford-questionnaire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/16973\/","title":{"rendered":"Christine Baranski Answers the Maria Bamford Questionnaire"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n \u201cI have a great fear that some Sondheim tune will be in my head, or I\u2019ll be thinking of something else, and I\u2019ll step off a curb, and \u2026 whack.\u201d
\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photo: Taylor Hill\/Getty Images\n <\/p>\n

The Maria Bamford Questionnaire is a series of 25 questions designed by the beloved and openhearted comedian<\/a> to unearth surprising truths about its respondents. In this edition, you\u2019ll learn about Christine Baranski<\/a>, the Emmy- and Tony-winning icon whose long career in TV, film, and theater includes starring roles in The Good Wife, The Good Fight, Mamma Mia, and presently, Nine Perfect Strangers<\/a> and The Gilded Age<\/a>.<\/p>\n

My comfort food is usually a bowl of cereal with milk. But right before bed, I have a glass of ice water.<\/p>\n

My religion would be rather like Native American religions. It would be centered on a reverence for the natural world, with weekly communal singing and dancing. No angry gray-bearded man.<\/p>\n

I love to travel, and I love to go to grand hotels and boutique hotels. If I could walk down the staircase of a grand hotel that had great history, with lots of incredible people who stayed there and lots of stories, it would be the Ritz in Paris, the Sacher in Vienna, the Connaught in London \u2026<\/p>\n

I did do a thing in the St. Regis<\/a> during Fashion Week, and the last shot was me in a leopard-printed bodysuit with a leopard cape walking down the staircase of the St. Regis in New York, and it just felt so incredibly glam. And I thought, If I were to do a major endorsement, being the face of a great hotel is way more interesting to me than, you know, face cream.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The safety of my family on a degraded planet and in a violent country. I have four grandsons and two daughters, and I worry about their futures. If you talk about a deep-seated existential fear, I, like most people, fear for what is ahead.<\/p>\n

I was ordering Nike shoes and a bomber jacket for my grandson\u2019s 7th birthday. It\u2019s so fun to have four grandsons.<\/p>\n

Well, in that I was looking online at children\u2019s shoes sizes and colors, deciding whether they should be red or purple. That is the very last thing I read. I also came upon my little list of Italian words and phrases to study, because I\u2019m studying Italian; I have a home in Tuscany, which is a beautiful retreat, and I\u2019m determined to communicate with the Italians as best I can. Studying a language is fun. If you\u2019re not learning lines for a TV show, it\u2019s a good way to keep your brain active. Plus, who wouldn\u2019t want to converse with Italians? Then, of course, there\u2019s scrolling and looking at all the horrifying news. But we don\u2019t want to get too far into that, so let\u2019s just leave it at the colors of Nike shoes.<\/p>\n

I bought an all-handmade wooden table and chairs for my 2-year-old grandson. You can tell a lot of this is grandma oriented.<\/p>\n

Recently, as in the last ten years, Donald Trump. The voice of Donald Trump. He\u2019s just in our ears and in our brains constantly, and it\u2019s maddening and terrifying.<\/p>\n

Toss-up between Hyderabad, India, or Las Vegas. I don\u2019t like Las Vegas, and I don\u2019t think I\u2019d ever go back to Hyderabad. I visited there once, but there\u2019s so many other places in the world.<\/p>\n

I would like to think my daughters and grandsons would take me and not give me a time limit. I did take them in and help them along in life, so I would hope they would return the favor. I like the idea that you could put a time on it: \u201cAfter six years, my daughters will throw me out.\u201d I guess it depends on good behavior and how useful I am around the house.<\/p>\n

I would be Lawrence of Arabia in Lawrence of Arabia. And, with TV, I would be in any episode of I Love Lucy or The Carol Burnett Show.<\/p>\n

I would like to quit the use of my cell phone. I would like to check it about an hour after I get up, and a few hours before I go to bed, and I would love to live without it. How would I go about it? I think I would go on a long trip that took me away from this informational ecosphere that we\u2019re in and concentrate on daily observations. Or, if I can\u2019t travel, I would deep-dive into a phenomenal novel and get my mind away from it, because to get away from addiction, you have to substitute with something. I don\u2019t even have social media, and I find my phone just drags me down with endless breaking news and emails \u2014 and everybody wants a response immediately \u2014 so I truly long to learn to live in slow time.<\/p>\n

I would have to say the Dalai Lama. I\u2019d like to know how he gets through the day or the week, and how he attains a higher level of consciousness. And then I recently saw Ken Burns on Face the Nation; I was utterly captivated by how articulate he was about history, particularly American history, and how ideas and thoughts and observations just flowed out of him. He\u2019s done so many extraordinary documentaries on so many aspects of life \u2014 everything from baseball to Leonardo da Vinci to the American Revolution. He\u2019s so intellectually curious. I\u2019d love to be in that brain for a while.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure I regret anything. Can I say I regret not doing something? I regret that, every day this week, I didn\u2019t get up at six, take a morning swim, go on a five-mile hike, and start my day in the natural world. I regret every moment that I choose instead to put my consciousness on practical things rather than living in the present in the natural world.<\/p>\n

I think we\u2019re all grappling with that: Where do we put our attention? We\u2019re all driven a little mad by living in this age of, as I said, breaking news and information. So much of the news is toxic or depressing or paralyzing. We don\u2019t know what to do with it, and yet we keep living and breathing the air of this time. I get up in the morning and the poet I read is Wordsworth, who was one of the great poets who wrote about the natural world, so I put my consciousness there. I regret not getting up at six in the morning, reading Wordsworth, and then swimming and hiking.<\/p>\n

I was able to put two daughters through really great schools and graduate schools. Isabel went to law school, and Lily went to Oxford to study anthropology, so I\u2019m jealous of their education. Although I went to a wonderful acting school \u2014 I went to Juilliard \u2014 it wasn\u2019t a university, so I didn\u2019t have a classic university or graduate-school education. And having played Diane Lockhart with her fierce legal acumen, I was definitely acting. I envy that my daughter actually went to law school and another got to have the experience of studying at Oxford. I\u2019m happy for them, but I do envy that.<\/p>\n

I think about four. I was born with platinum-blonde hair; it became a dark blonde in my teens and early 20s. When I had a baby, I turned into a brunette, and then it went back to being dark blonde for the purposes of filming, because I thought the lighter hair was easier on camera. And then, at times, it looked reddish blonde. I would say four different colors. But not like pink, green, black, and blonde; these were gradations of blonde.<\/p>\n

I would live in England or Italy.<\/p>\n

There are people I don\u2019t like because I find them abrasive, but what I\u2019ve learned from them is that honesty \u2014 just unabashed honesty \u2014 is refreshing and, I think, clarifying. I admire people who can be really ruthlessly honest and not care whether or not people like them.<\/p>\n

Okay, are you ready? I have a protein drink. It has fresh blueberries, frozen blueberries, pomegranate, maqui powder, a scoop of peanut butter, and vanilla protein powder in oat milk, and some flax seeds. And all of this gets blended. It\u2019s about a glass and a half of this dark purple gloop, and it really sets me up.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m sorry to go there again, but I recently saw Trump\u2019s press conference in the Oval Office, which now looks like the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami; it looks like a Miami Beach hotel. And I actually laughed out loud, because he was, with his orange hair, sitting on a yellow chair, and the chairs were all yellow, and then behind him were all these gold frames, and it was just comical to me.<\/p>\n

Having the people\u2019s house turned into a gilded palace.<\/p>\n

My house has a long dock, and one of my favorite things is to sit at the end of the dock and watch the sunset. So a sunset in Connecticut or Tuscany. Pretty good!<\/p>\n

The new Oval Office. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n

I already have that amount of money, having worked for 50 years. I would want another $20 billion so that I can give to environmental, cultural, and educational institutions. Because the world needs very serious philanthropists now.<\/p>\n

Have you crossed a New York street lately? I have a great fear that some Sondheim tune will be in my head, or I\u2019ll be thinking of something else, and I\u2019ll step off a curb, and \u2026 whack. It\u2019ll be a bike, a bus, a bicyclist \u2026 Look both ways several times! Even look up and down when you\u2019re crossing the street in New York. Just because it says \u201cWalk,\u201d when you step off a curb, you\u2019re not safe! I worked in Munich, and when the sign says \u201cDo Not Walk\u201d in German, nobody walks; everybody obeys the sign. It\u2019s sort of the Wild West in New York, and I\u2019m afraid it\u2019s a serious issue. I tell my friends who are visiting New York, \u201cYou\u2019ve got to look both ways. When exiting a taxi, you\u2019ve got to be super, super aware.\u201d<\/p>\n

But on the other hand, if I was taken out immediately, that would kind of be good, because what I really don\u2019t want is an extended period of suffering, and being hooked up to machines like I\u2019m a science experiment, and a burden to my family. So a quick whack might be \u2026 But I don\u2019t want to wish for that. I don\u2019t want to think too much about death, actually. I\u2019m about
to swim and hike and learn Italian. Why would I even think about death?<\/p>\n


\n See All<\/p>\n

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