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• The Jane Austen Book Club
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Tavis: Kathy Baker is an award-winning actress best known for her role on the popular TV series "Picket Fences," where she won three Emmys and a Golden Globe award. Her latest project is the new film "The Jane Austen Book Club." The film features a strong ensemble cast and will be in wide release beginning October 5th. Here now, though, a scene from "The Jane Austen Book Club."

[Clip]

Tavis: (Laughs) Nice to meet you, Kathy.

Kathy Baker: Nice to meet you, thank you.

Tavis: I was running a list of all your films, and I was literally flipping channels last night and saw "Cold Mountain." Great movie.

Baker: I love that one.

Tavis: I love it.

Baker: I know, I love that one. Beautiful book, beautiful movie.

Tavis: Both. You have your list of favorites that you've starred in?

Baker: Yeah, I do.

Tavis: "Cold Mountain's" on the top of your list? Near the -

Baker: Very near the top. Very - I love "Jackknife," which a lot of people didn't see, but that was a great favorite. I love "Edward Scissorhands;" I love "Nine Lives." I love "Cider House Rules." I don't know, yeah. It's like kids; it's hard to say, like, your favorite, because you get so involved in each one.

Tavis: Well, what's good about that, though, is that it's good to have a list of favorites. It's good to be in a position where you can look back on your body of work and like most of, a good piece of what you've done.

Baker: Exactly. I don't think I can say that there's one that I don't like or that I'm embarrassed to talk about.

Tavis: That's rare, though. You do realize that?

Baker: I guess, I guess.

Tavis: (Laughter) Everybody has a little something that they wish they hadn't done. They look back on it, and - yeah, that's a good thing, though. Tell me about the "The Jane Austen Book Club," and I ask that for starters because it's not about a Jane Austen book.

Baker: No. Thank you for saying that. And I think just by me being here with you, you are going to help us with this whole thing that it's a girl's movie, made from girl's books. But it's a movie about people who are in a book club. It's actually a movie about people who like to read.

But oddly enough, it's so funny and it's so compelling, and it kind of takes you from scene to scene so quickly. It's beautifully edited and beautifully adapted by our writer-director, Robin Swicord, from the book by Karen Joy Fowler.

Tavis: Tell me more about the storyline. How do you do a movie where the storyline is about people who like to read?

Baker: I know, I don't even know. In fact, when I -

Tavis: It sounds weird when you see it on paper.

Baker: Well, when I was shooting it I was thinking is this going to be interesting, six people sitting around talking about reading? But the way Robin has structured it, it's a romantic comedy. It's about people, the six people in the book club, and how they interact and intersect, and falling in and out of love, and getting together.

And that alone is so compelling, and then when you add that element of the Jane Austen books, the sort of characters that are like certain books by Jane Austen or just the fact that you recognize yourself in the people in the movie, and in the Jane Austen stories. So I don't know, it's just a very compelling thing.

Tavis: To your point earlier, that the movie is not just for women, obviously - it's a romantic comedy, you want a broad audience, but you can't ignore the fact, though - and I haven't done any scientific research on this, but it does seem to be the case that women are more open to being a part of a book club than men are.

Baker: Well, I know, and I don't know what that is - maybe you could help me. But we were at a screening the other night, and Robin Swicord asked the audience of maybe 400 people who was in a book club, and it was all women. It was actually all women. There were a couple of guys who were in a couple's book club.

Nobody, not one hand raised when we asked is anyone in an all-men's book club? Now, I don't know why. I made a stupid joke that men would have to actually listen to each other. (Laughter) But I don't know. I wish I - I don't know.

Tavis: I think you may be on to something there - that may be true. But I think part of it also is this notion of men sitting around expressing themselves.

Baker: Maybe.

Tavis: When you read a book, and I've written a number of books, I have presented at a number of book clubs - dominated by women - and when you start talking about a particular book, what you ultimately get to, as the movie points out, in fact, is opening up about your own life.

Baker: Exactly.

Tavis: Opening up about yourself.

Baker: Your own feelings.

Tavis: So a book - exactly. So a book club requires men to actually open up, and I think therein perhaps lies the rub.

Baker: I think you're right. I do.

Tavis: Maybe so. Although certainly in the Black community, if you could figure out a way to get brothers at the barber shop (laughter) to join a book club, it's on and popping.

Baker: "The Jane Austin Barber Shop Book Club."

Tavis: Barber Shop Club - book club, exactly.

Baker: I was saying I ran into Don Cheadle at the Toronto Film Festival, and I said, “Well, we should have called it the ‘Jane Austen Fight Club.'”

Tavis: Yeah, something like that.

Baker: You get the guys there.

Tavis: Yeah, because guys talk in the barber shop, they talk on the golf course. It's just a matter of where the book club meets, maybe, so (unintelligible) something like that.

Baker: Right, it's true. Because they say, and I have sons, and they say if you want to talk to your son about something serious, drive them somewhere, or be in the car while they're driving. Have them be doing something physical while you talk to them about an emotional subject.

Tavis: I never heard that before.

Baker: So you have actually pinpointed it. Play golf and have a book club at the same time. Bowl and have a book club at the same time. I don't know.

Tavis: Get your hair cut and have a book club.

Baker: Exactly.

Tavis: What does it say to you, though, that the best way to get your son's attention around an emotional issue is to get them while they're doing something physical? What do you make of that?

Baker: Well, maybe it's just that they're shy or uncomfortable talking about feelings. A girl would kind of go, so Mom, this and that. But a boy needs to be actually doing something. I just think it's a way for a boy to be not so connected with his feelings, but he can get connected to his feelings if he's doing something physical.

Tavis: Yeah, it's fascinating.

Baker: I don't know. I wish I was a better mom. (Laughter) I sent my son off to Chicago yesterday to live, and I said, "Did I teach you anything? Did I teach you one single thing?" He couldn't think of much, except I taught him how to scramble eggs. That was his answer.

Tavis: If he's living by himself, that's good help. That's going to be good advice. What's he going to Chicago for?

Baker: Oh, he's going to get a job in journalism.

Tavis: Wow.

Baker: Yeah, he's interested in journalism, so.

Tavis: That's not bad.

Baker: Yeah.

Tavis: Not bad. Speaking of your being a mother, let me take you back right quick to your childhood. Did I read that you grew up Quaker?

Baker: I did, I did grow up a Quaker in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Tavis: Tell me about that.

Baker: There were, like, three Quakers.

Tavis: Three of you, yeah. (Laughs)

Baker: Yeah. We had -

Tavis: This is not Pennsylvania.

Baker: I know, this was Albuquerque, New Mexico. Our first meeting when I was really little was in the basement of the one Jewish synagogue. Albuquerque didn't have a lot of Jews or a lot of Quakers.

Tavis: So the Quakers are meeting in the synagogue.

Baker: Yeah, exactly.

Tavis: That's funny. There's a movie in that (unintelligible).

Baker: Yes. (Laughter)

Tavis: Maybe not a good movie -

Baker: There's a book club in that, right.

Tavis: A book club in that, yeah.

Baker: Then we moved to a little house. It was just a little house, and I think maybe there were 40, 45, at the most - dripping wet, whatever they say.

Tavis: How does - because I'm always fascinated by different faiths, different beliefs. How does that experience as a child inform your life today, growing up as a Quaker?

Baker: Man, I don't know.

Tavis: You ever think about that?

Baker: Yeah, a lot. I was talking to my kids about it this summer, actually. We were just talking about the belief in God, and it's a very long conversation, of course, but I'll just say to answer your question, I think what Quakerism did for me is I believe in a very private religion. It's just about me, it's inside me. We believe that God is inside you.

That there is a light inside you, everyone has a light. And it's not about the outside, it's not about the sermon, it's not about the church itself, it's not about the - see, I don't even know the words that people use. It's not about the liturgy, that's the word, thank you. It's not about the hymns. It's about meditation - an hour of silent meditation.

So you come to see it as a very private and personal thing, and I know that I'm kind of crazy private about a lot of stuff. I'm private because of my career and being in the public eye, but I have a lot of privacy issues that my husband, for instance, doesn't seem to have in his upbringing. And so I don't know if that's part of the Quaker thing.

The volunteerism and helping others - I'm actually quite involved now. I don't go to Quaker meeting, I go to the All Saints church which was in the news today - do you know All Saints Episcopal Church was in the news about the IRS not continuing their investigation into the All Saints church?

And I'm involved in that church because I'm very interested in the social activism, and I think being a Quaker - when you're brought up a Quaker, one thing that I didn't like as a child is you weren't allowed to have your own Halloween or your own Christmas. You had to do trick-or-treat for UNICEF. You had to do a mitten tree for the poor kids in Romania. And you weren't sort of allowed - and a child is a selfish person; I'm a selfish person. I like a Christmas present for me.

Tavis: We all are, we all are, yeah.

Baker: I like Halloween candy for me. And at the time, I felt like oh, it's sort of my job to always give to others. And that's a double-edged sword, actually.

Tavis: But there's a powerful lesson in that. I was just in a conversation the other day with somebody, as we close here, who said something to me that I think fits your story about it being private and about doing something for other people. He said to me that people would rather see a sermon than hear a sermon.

Baker: Wow. And by that you mean see somebody volunteer, see somebody give.

Tavis: Don't preach to me.

Baker: Do it.

Tavis: Do it.

Baker: Walk the walk.

Tavis: I'd rather see a sermon than hear a sermon.

Baker: That's very good. That's a good one.

Tavis: Anyway, the movie is "The Jane Austen Book Club," not about a Jane Austen book, but a wonderful story of these sisters hanging out and reading. So Kathy Baker, nice to meet you. Glad to have you here.

Baker: So nice to talk to you, thank you.

Tavis: All the best to your son in Chicago.

Baker: Thank you very much.

Tavis: Scrambled or fried?

Baker: I guess scrambled - he said I taught him how to scramble eggs.

Tavis: Scrambled, okay, all right. (Laughter) That's our show for tonight.