Midmorning With Aundrea - November 20, 2020 (Part 3)

(Part 3 of 4) Actress Rachel Bloom shot to fame on the strength of memorable performances such as her Emmy-winning "Crazy Ex-Girlfriend".

Now she's out with a new book called "I Want to Be Where the Normal People Are".

Award- winning actor and writer rachel bloom shot to fame with memorable performances like her critically- acclaimed, emmy- winning show "crazy ex girlfriend."

Now she's out with a new book called "i want to be wher the normal people are."

In a conversation with anthony mason, bloom shares the brutally honest and hilarious account of her journey, from awkward theater kid to big- time star.

Mason: i gotta imagine putting some of this on paper, i mean, it made me squirm to read some of it.

How did you feel writing it?

Bloom: the only thing that made me squirm was typing out the erotic poetry i wrote at age 11.

// it's mortifying.

Rachel bloom had a flair for the dramatic early on& mason: you were almost the very definition of a broadway baby.

Bloom: yes.

Very much.

Mason: how bad did you want it?

// bloom: to be on broadway, oh my gosh, so bad.

// if the genie from aladdin came from the future and said, "i guarante you, you'll be on broadway," i would've made the bullying all okay.

Bloom: here's where the popular kids sat.

It is completely unchanged the worst of the bullying came one day in seventh grade& bloom: so here's where it happened.

When the "cool kids paid the most popular boy in school to ask her out& as a joke.

Mason: how long would you say that stayed with you?

Bloom: it's still with me!

// it gave me more of a complex for feeling that i was out of place and that i wasn't fitting in.

And throughout middle school, a feeling she called "the bad" had be manifesting inside her... it was an undiagnosed form of obsessive- compulsive disorder.

Bloom: it was like this heavy backpack.

And the only way i could momentarily shake it off was to tell my parents about these guilty, intrusive thoughts.

// and it feels like there's a bad or a darkness that's coming to take everything you love about life and everything you love about yourself.

Acting, singing and writing became a distraction.

Bloom: then i found this sketch comedy group and i fell head over heels in love with writing sketch comedy.

In 2010, bloom began creating and funding her own content.

Her first music video went viral: rachel: ray bradbury, the greatest sci-fi writer in history& bloom: until i madethat video, i hadn't thought that my love of music could combine with comedy in that way.

And the way that aline brosh mckenna discovered me for crazy ex- girlfriend was from my internet videos.

"i'm just a girl i love&" "crazy ex girlfriend" premiered on the c-w in 2015 nat: over four seasons, bloom and her collaborators, jack dolgen and adam schlesinger, wrote 157 original songs.

Nat: "crazy e girlfriend!"

Nat: "i have friends i definitely have friends" nat: "the sex getting ready song&" nat : "you seem sad rebecca.

Something's wrong, rebecca."

In "crazy ex girlfriend," bloo played the role of rebecca bunch& a lawyer with borderline personality disorder who deals with her mental health, anxiety, and depression nat: "i'm not sad you're sad" through full musical numbers imagined in her head nat: bloom: i believe when done right // songs have the ability to tell stories and convey jokes as good as or better than m-- other forms of writing.

And this show was everything i'd ever wanted to do.

So all of my energy went into it.

// mason: that's gotta be a lot pressure.

Bloom: it was an insane four years.

But she'd finally found a psychiatrist to help her cope, and wrote her own struggles into the show.

Bloom: there were parts of it that were really autobiographical- nat: "you ruine everything&" bloom: i was like, are people just gonna laugh at me?

Does this make any sense to anyone else?

Those were the scariest songs to write.

And i find that those were the songs people connected with the most.

Audience : you ruined everything& you stupid, stupid& rachel: yes, i deserve this!

Bloom: for me, sharing stuff with the world, vomiting it to the world-- i mean, it little bit harkens back to, like, my ocd, right?

Where it's like i'm feeling a thing, i need to confess a thing, and that'll help it.

But in the case of my emotions, it actually does.

Nat : "rachel bloom crazy-ex girlfriend" in 2016, bloom won a golden globe for best actress in a comedy series.

After the series wrapped last year, she won her first emmy for outstanding original music and lyrics.

And in march of this year, bloom gave birth to a baby girl, but her daughter was put on a ventilator in the nicu.

And that same night, bloom learned her songwriting partner adam schlesinger was hospitalized with covid-19& also on a ventilator.

Mason: that must have been an extraordinary collision of emotions.

// bloom: it was the most emotionally intense and traumatic time of my life honestly.

It was really, really hard.

// schlesinger died less than two weeks later bloom: it makes so angry because he had so much more to do and so much more to say.

// he was not slowing down.

But now bloom is home, raising a healthy daughter& and ready to perform again mason: would you ever want to be on broadway?

Bloom: oh, i would love to be on broadway.

Nat: "antidepressants are so, so, so not a big deal&" bloom: i had a little taste of it when we played radio city music hall.

It was so special and so thrilling // and it still is, despite everything i've been through, my dream.

Nat: "taking them i all we have in common!"

Coming up a conversation with author jeff kinney.

Midmorning will be right back.