Paget Brewster can currently be seen in the psychosexual horror-comedy Touch Me, which is currently out in New York City, will be in limited theaters from March 27, and on demand and on digital April 7. She recently reprised her long-running role as Special Agent Emily Prentiss in the Criminal Minds and appeared on seasons one and two of Hulu’s How I Met Your Father. Other recent work includes Ryan Murphy’s Netflix series Hollywood and the CBS comedy Mom. Paget has also starred in the comedy shows Another Period, Grandfathered with John Stamos, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, Huff and Community. Paget’s extensive voiceover work includes Family Guy, American Dad, Tuca & Bertie, The Simpsons, and many more, and she was nominated for an Emmy in 2020 for her voice work in Ducktales. Among her feature film credits are Welcome to Happiness, My Big Fat Independent Movie, The Big Bad Swim, The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Man of the House.
Three Great Things is Talkhouse’s series in which artists tell us about three things they absolutely love. To mark the current theatrical release of the psychosexual horror-comedy Touch Me, starring Lou Taylor Pucci, Olivia Taylor Dudley and Paget Brewster, fan-favorite actress Brewster shared some of the things she loves most in life. — N.D.
My Alien Art Project
I have a new, highly-beloved hobby that popped up out of nowhere last summer. It involves me going to Goodwill and St. Vincent de Paul and finding old landscape paintings, vinyl record covers, posters, portraits, drawings – anything that has a sky in it. And then I paint, draw or produce a tiny photograph of an alien craft and put it into one of these pictures.
I go to Goodwill to get frames and then clean them up (or distress them more), so everything is recycled. Now I’m making these pictures for all my friends, adding alien crafts to pictures of places where they grew up, amending antique photographs, vintage postcards or modern-day prints. It’s drawing little things with a magnifying glass or printing out tiny photographs and just making bizarre found folk art for my friends. I do believe there’s alien life out there (which is why it’s good that I’m in Touch Me), because that’s what it’s all about.
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The roots of this hobby go back 20 years, when a friend took me to Kathy Griffin’s house for her birthday. I didn’t have anything to give her, but I had a tiki velvet painting in my house and I thought, “I’m going to paint a UFO on it and take it to Kathy.” (For context, I failed out of Parsons School of Design – twice!) When I gave the painting to Kathy, she said, “You should do more of this,” but then I completely forgot about it.
A few months ago, though, I was looking at a cheap impressionist painting of Paris and the Eiffel Tower that was hanging in my closet, and I thought, That needs an alien. So I drew a UFO in it, and then I just went down the rabbit hole. And it’s so satisfying, maybe because the world feels crazy and we don’t have disclosure yet.
Right now, I just love having this tiny enjoyable hobby. I hope I don’t burn out on it, because now I’m stockpiling these pictures. I have about 60. I might just give them to friends or sell them on eBay, but I could maybe even do a show at an art gallery. It feels like such a cheat to do that, but I would love to have an exhibit, because I’m trying so hard with these pictures. I have to match the style of every artist. I bought a bunch of Esquire magazines from the ’30s and ’40s, where the ads were all watercolor paintings of a guy in front of an ocean liner. I have to match the artist’s style, but the trick is also matching that style with the correct alien craft. When I describe it, I sound insane, but I love it!
Cooking
I’m a big cook and I cook almost every day. I love it. I’m trying to go out to more restaurants to keep local mom-and-pop places alive, but I find cooking so meditative.
My husband has become mostly vegetarian, which has been great, because it makes cooking for him more of a challenge. I can’t just say, “Oh, here’s some chicken and I made the sauce.” I’ve been enjoying getting into curries and spices and fish sauce, making Vietnamese and Thai food. I’ll never have the skill of being able to make great Chinese food, and I’ve stopped trying, but I like to be challenged.
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I also watch Bobby Flay, Guy Fieri and all of the cooking shows, and always have to pause and rewind them, as I’m trying absorb their advice on, say, how to blanch things. It’s very enjoyable to me. Cooking just feels meditative, positive and loving, and is something I really love doing at home. I probably started cooking in earnest after my husband and I got married, but I was cooking before that. In 2004, when I was shooting Huff, I did a segment on Extra where I was trying to make Thai noodles, and I set my kitchen rag on fire and the production crew had to run downstairs. That was 22 years ago, and I’ve been trying to become a better home cook since then!
Cooking is another form of expression, but not one where I need a producer or a network’s permission. Having a creative outlet is very satisfying and I like to be the one to decide what I’m doing. I want to cook good food. I want to make a good alien picture.
Watching Reality TV
I watch a lot of TV, but as I don’t have kids or have pets, it’s OK. I also read a lot, so I’m not a complete reprobate. As I mentioned before, I love cooking shows. I also love The Traitors, Southern Charm, 90 Day Fiancé. And Ladies of London just came back after nine years, which is very exciting to me. I basically watch a lot of reality TV. I just like seeing people, even though I know sometimes the “reality” isn’t real.
I do like scripted shows, too – I just finished the Marvel series Wonder Man, which I thought was great. But I’m watching Ryan Murphy’s The Beauty now, and I noticed, “Oh, they shot other scenes from that episode in this restaurant, so they must have blocked that shot. Now I see why they’re there, because they had to make sure they shot everything out in this one restaurant before. And I bet the hotel’s above it …” It’s hard to turn off that part of my brain. I’m thinking about their production schedule, even though I’m enjoying the show.
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But on a reality show, it’s different. There’s something about other people’s travails that is very compelling. I like 90 Day Fiancé – I’ve never been to the Dominican Republic, and I don’t know if this marriage is going to work out! Are these people going to stay together? Are they going to make it? (Should they make it?) Why did they choose each other? I think Americans just want someone hot. These relationships are never going to work, but I’m still fascinated by them. My husband walked in the other day when I was watching the latest episode of Ladies of London. He said I was looking at the screen like a child who was finally allowed to watch cartoons on Saturday. He said I looked absurd!
