{"id":508301,"date":"2026-07-03T18:23:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:23:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/508301\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T18:23:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T18:23:15","slug":"what-june-diane-raphael-watches-and-reads-with-her-sons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/508301\/","title":{"rendered":"What June Diane Raphael Watches (and Reads) With Her Sons"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Getty Images, Everett Collection, Paramount\n <\/p>\n

June Diane Raphael is good at being a mom. It\u2019s true onscreen \u2014 where she\u2019s Eva, mother of a teenage Elle Woods, in Prime Video\u2019s new Legally Blonde prequel Elle \u2014 and off, where she\u2019s bringing up two tweenage boys (\u201cuntil they tell me otherwise\u201d) alongside husband Paul Scheer.<\/p>\n

Part of what makes Raphael such a good onscreen mom, she says, is that she\u2019s pulling from her experience with her own mother, who died unexpectedly 19 years ago<\/a>. \u201cI definitely felt her unconditional love and support, and I\u2019m so grateful,\u201d Raphael says. \u201cEva rides so hard for Elle and is so invested and in awe of her daughter, which is so beautiful to watch and kind of rare to see on TV, where sometimes the representations of moms and daughters can skew a little competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n

That genuine affection and admiration is something Raphael is trying to pass on to her own kids, whom she calls her greatest teachers. \u201cMy children stretch me in all the ways,\u201d she says, adding that they\u2019ve also made her rethink some of the things she was taught as a child.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo amount of therapy or antidepressants can heal like reparenting yourself through your children, and I think that\u2019s really special,\u201d Raphael says.<\/p>\n

\"Toto\" <\/p>\n

Photo: Michel Linssen\/Redferns\n <\/p>\n

One of my goals for the summer is to really expand my kids\u2019 musical taste.<\/p>\n

Sometimes in the car home from school, they\u2019re really fried and they just want to sit in silence. But other times, I am trying to give them more of an education in music. We were just listening to Taylor Swift because we like \u201cThe Fate of Ophelia,\u201d but also, there\u2019s a lot of \u201970s classic rock I\u2019m trying to introduce them to, like Fleetwood Mac. We were listening to Hall & Oates today, and they love the song \u201cAfrica\u201d by Toto.<\/p>\n

Our younger son has an excellent ear. He can listen to accents and music and he can mimic them both. Where he knows most of his music from at this point is soundtracks, so he will hear a song out in the wild, like at a restaurant, and be like, \u201cOh, this is from the second Minions movie,\u201d or whatever. He\u2019s learning about a lot of music through big blockbusters, like Guardians of the Galaxy. They love that soundtrack, and that\u2019s great because there\u2019s some really amazing music on there.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Photo: Buena Vista Pictures\/courtesy Everett Collection\n <\/p>\n

My kids would watch a movie every night if they could. I think, in the time of, quote, unquote, \u201ccreators,\u201d like these YouTubers that they or their friends think are funny, it\u2019s really important to me and Paul that we introduce them to real comedy. I take that as seriously as I do the golden rules about how to behave \u2014 like, I can\u2019t have you thinking that that is good.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ve watched a lot of the comedies that Paul and I loved growing up. There\u2019s some stuff that I fast-forward because it\u2019s problematic. It\u2019s not like, \u201cI can put this on and go make dinner.\u201d Like, we have to be there talking through everything and potentially fast-forwarding stuff.<\/p>\n

I wanted to show them Uncle Buck the other day, and it was like, \u201cOh, there\u2019s a whole rape story line I completely forgot about.\u201d Another of my favorite movies was Adventures in Babysitting, and there\u2019s some stuff in there, too, but I was so excited to show it to them. They loved it, which was good because it\u2019s really hard when they don\u2019t love something I loved so much. They love Troop Beverly Hills, too, and just saw Ocean\u2019s 11 and loved it.<\/p>\n

I have a Notes app that I keep of all the movies I want to show them. Unfortunately, I\u2019m also doing some countercultural work because Paul has been showing them all the Jackass movies and they love them so much. They just saw the new one at a special screening and were obsessed with it. I have an appreciation, I really do, but I\u2019m also like, \u201cI need you to see the scene in Big Business where they\u2019re in the bathroom and Lily Tomlin and Bette Midler are doing amazing clownwork.\u201d<\/p>\n

We are into MrBeast, so if MrBeast puts out a new video, we will be watching it. I genuinely enjoy it, too. I think he\u2019s very good at what he does, and we really loved Beast Games.<\/p>\n

With our youngest, if I\u2019m scrolling on TikTok, I have a special folder for him that\u2019s a collection of videos that I save. It\u2019s mostly people falling or people trying to walk out to their cars during ice storms, but I also save videos of dogs doing funny things. Then, once a month, it\u2019ll be like, \u201cAll right, come on over, Sam. It\u2019s time to do some TikTok,\u201d and we\u2019ll look through all those videos together.<\/p>\n

\"Full <\/p>\n

Photo: Getty Images\/iStockphoto\n <\/p>\n

Paul taught the kids how to play poker, so we play that together. I play mahjong with my youngest too. I did a little bit of a modified version of it for him, but he picked it up pretty quick. With our oldest, we like cards, so I\u2019ll play gin rummy with him.<\/p>\n

I will play Tetris on the Xbox with our oldest, too, and I absolutely love it. They\u2019re trying to get me into some other games, and I wish I could remember the names of them, but it\u2019s a very special occasion when I agree to sit down and play a video game with them.<\/p>\n

This is also where I\u2019m very much like my mom. Like, I never saw my mom with her hair wet. We would all go in the ocean and lakes and stuff, and I never saw my mom put her head underwater. There\u2019s just certain things she didn\u2019t do, which I now deeply respect because there are certain things I don\u2019t want to do. Like, I\u2019m not going to really sit down and play video games, so that\u2019s for them, but occasionally, I\u2019ll do Tetris because that\u2019s a very healing game for me to play.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

When the boys were little, I loved the Sandra Boynton books. I remember when I wrote my book<\/a>, we were published at Workman Publishing. We had a couple offers from different publishers, but I remember going to the Workman building to pitch the book and have them talk about the proposal and I saw all of these little, kooky Sandra Boynton books. I just find them to be so beautiful and funny and simple, and both of our boys were obsessed with them at the time.<\/p>\n

So, anyway, they represented her and published those books, which is why I wanted to go there. Then I found out all about her \u2014 like, where she lives and her life \u2014 and then through the publishers, she ended up sending me a bunch of books, and I wrote her a letter to say \u201cthank you.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the cool things is that the boys are super into Big Nate. Well, our youngest is. Our oldest has definitely gotten out of it by now, but Paul and I were both on that show, so that is one of the great thrills, when you can be on something that your children love.<\/p>\n

\"Episode <\/p>\n

Photo: Copyright\u00a9 2026 World of Wonder.\n <\/p>\n

My youngest son and I watch RuPaul\u2019s Drag Race. He\u2019s so competitive that the competition piece of it really spoke to him.<\/p>\n

I was going to take him to see Stop That Train, too, because I loved that script so much when I read it. I haven\u2019t seen the movie yet, but I love that kind of Airplane comedy, and the jokes were killing me. I loved being on the set of that movie so much, too \u2014 like, I had a great time \u2014 so I thought it would be hilarious.<\/p>\n

So I was going to take him to see it, but then one of the producers I know very well was like, \u201cI don\u2019t know \u2026 \u201d and so I haven\u2019t yet. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\n

\"Reverse <\/p>\n

Photo: Robert Voets\/CBS\n <\/p>\n

We are Survivor people, and we loved this last season. Every time we watch it, I tell the kids how badly I want to go on Survivor, too, and we talk about it. The thing I\u2019m most interested in doing is, of course, the physical challenges, but what holds me back is knowing they have to detox from caffeine because I genuinely, at this age, can\u2019t not have coffee. I did say to both of them, though, that if there\u2019s ever a parent-child season like there has been in the past, I will apply with them.<\/p>\n

\"Brooklyn <\/p>\n

Photo: Jordin Althaus\/NBC\n <\/p>\n

We watched all of Brooklyn Nine-Nine last summer \u2014 like, every single episode. I had never seen it, and I\u2019m realizing that there are a lot of really important comedic series that I didn\u2019t watch because I was so upset I wasn\u2019t on them. Like, that\u2019s why I\u2019d never seen The Office.<\/p>\n

But we watched all of Brooklyn Nine-Nine, and we loved it so very much, and then there was a lot of grief around it ending, which I wasn\u2019t expecting from the kids. Once we were in the second-to-last season, I felt them getting scared. When the characters left, like Chelsea Peretti, that was a big deal, too. They really felt so deeply about them, and it reminded me that there\u2019s something really beautiful about sitcoms and comedies where the stakes are pretty low, ultimately, but you\u2019re so comforted by these characters. You love them, and they\u2019re in your living room, and you\u2019re with each other laughing.<\/p>\n

They were so scared of that experience ending that Paul and I were like, \u201cGuys, there will be another one. You\u2019ll love something else, we promise, and we can always go back and rewatch it again too.\u201d It was hard, though, because they didn\u2019t want to watch any other show after, and it was like watching them go through their first heartbreak. But then we started them on The Office, and I think we\u2019re on season five now, and they\u2019re just loving it.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m loving it, too. I think it\u2019s been enough time now to where I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t have to be jealous and mad that I\u2019m not doing these parts. I can just love it. Everything happened for a reason.<\/p>\n

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