As the movie is set to be released on Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Download, FlickDirect special correspondent Apryl P. Gordon had the chance to speak with Sarandon and Hines about all the trial and tribulations that go hand in hand with motherhood and how they now appreciate their own moms.
Apryl: I have a really pressing question, Is Kenny G. OK?
Cheryl: (laughing) I think Kenny G Made it. He's doing alright.
Apryl: I can tell that dodgeball scene was pretty intense so my question is how physical was it and how do you guys prepare for roles like that?
Cheryl: well my character was also afraid of most things so I mostly got to roll up into a ball. I didn't have to do a lot of training for that
Apryl: As a mom, we put so much pressure on ourselves especially during the holiday season so I wanted to know even though Bad Moms is obviously a comedy is there a core message it gives to mom s today?
Susan: It's sooooo important just to give yourself a break not to be perfect not just during the holidays but I mean everything - all the classes and the forms that have to get in and the meals that have to get cooked. You know you do your best you can and you love your kids and you apologize when things don't work out perfect but they need you and they need to have fun with you more than they need an impeccable house. I know I used to spend all my time in these indiscriminate still lifes that were everywhere, one sock, one piece of fish. No one else can figure out where those pieces went and you can do that constantly but finally, at the end of the day, your kids don't care. What they care about is to have you listen to them...We try to be so perfect in ways that maybe aren't that significant... sometimes you lose your fun and lose your silly and you lose that part of you, your personality that was who you were before you had kids and decided to be a mother and so I think it's really, really important to forgive yourself constantly and say ‘I love you, I love you, I love you' and laugh and relax a little bit...
Cheryl: You try to find the balance being your own person. It is hard to keep your old personality once you have a baby. You have to redefine yourself and that took a little while for me to understand because I sued to go out with my friends at the last minutes and ‘Let's go we'll stay out until 3' and it's like ‘Yes' and then you have a baby and then it's like ‘Oh my God, I'm not doing that, I'm not doing anything except watch a baby sleep' and then you have to figure out ‘This is my life now is watching a baby sleep?' You have to redefine everything which is ok but it takes a while to get there.
Apryl: How do you appreciate your own moms now being a mom and secondly, as a grandmother how different is that type of relationship?
Susan: So much easier than being a mother. I can't begin to tell you because by now you know ‘it will work out. Seriously, I know it's going to be fine'... It's so much easier because it makes you understand how when you're a mother that child is on your brain until you die. Doesn't matter that they are older though. You're always somewhere that your kids are there, you know, you're somewhere that you haven't heard from one of them in a while, they're always there but with a grandchild, you can just worship them...
Cheryl: ...and give them back...
Susan: And know it's going to be fine. You know you can take adventures with them but then they will be fine you don't have to worry about when they're due for their next shot when this is happening. As a mother I was...one thing you can give them is who you are. It's really so special and that's what you don't' want to lose, that sense of humor. I mean I don't know what people do if kids don't have a sense of humor. That's going to throw them at some point. When they start to get older, I tell you now that my kids are in their twenties there is that whole other world. You reread your Vonnegut and your (inaudible), they introduce to music you have never seen, they challenge you to things, they have discussion about [stuff} that's coming down and politics and then we go ‘wow these people I didn't even know were in there' and they go ‘whoa who are you?'...and then they go ‘Mom, I never knew you were so cool'. It's amazing and they want to go places and do things in a way that is so different and that really pays off...
Apryl: and you both appreciate when you became moms appreciating your moms
Susan: ...Well, my mom was the oldest of 9. My mother grew up in institutions and orphanages and foster care...and it was just, everyone survived but she did what she could but what she came from was miserable.
Cheryl: Well, I got a chance to, you know my mom came to help when my daughter was born and at first I thought ‘oh my gosh she gonna make me crazy living in the same house as me' and then when it was time for her to go after two or three weeks I cried. I said, ‘You can't leave. I don't know what I'm going to do without you. You cannot leave'. But I call her all the time when I have advice and she appreciates it and now that I'm older and I understand it's interesting to talk to her about her life and ‘how did you have four kids and a husband that couldn't keep a job?' and she like, ‘I asked the neighbors to take me to work. I didn't have a car'. And it's just like, ‘Oh my God!' So thing that you don't know when you're growing up, the things your parents did for you but now I know. You kind of go through your life - you go through phases as a kid, as a young person - are you mad at your parents for who they are? Are you mad at your parents for who they aren't? Like ‘Their parents have it together, how come my parents don't have it together. (laughter) That's not fair'. Life isn't fair, you don't know what they've been through but now you can ask them what they've been through and it's interesting.
I know mothers everywhere appreciated the original film and its sequel and now fans will be able to add the second movie to their home entertainment collection. A Bad Moms Christmas Blu-ray and DVD will be in stores today, February 6, 2018.
