Award-winning actor and debut author Lili Taylor chats with Zibby about TURNING TO BIRDS, a collection of beautifully crafted, inquisitive, eye-opening essays about the search for peace in a cacophony of birds and discovering a world of meaning in small moments. The two dive into Lili’s deep love of birding—how it began well before the pandemic and became a way of seeing and being in the world. They explore the emotional and neurological power of paying attention, the art of listening, and the beauty of connecting with nature to feel more at home in ourselves and the world. Lili shares stories of rooftop bird rescues, birding in unexpected places, and her quiet but profound journey into authorship.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Lily. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked with Zibby to talk about Turning To Birds, The Power And Beauty Of Noticing. Congrats. So you are a birder. You have taken us through this time. I've downloaded the apps you recommended. I am like all in it, ready to go, and I'm like talking to my, I'm like, look up. Listen, we can do this. I'm trying your experiments.

Anyway, it was.. 

Lili: Yay. 

Zibby: How did you get into your birding life and when did you decide to turn this into a book? 

Lili: Yeah. I really feel like I had a COVID moment, but I just had it a lot earlier than everybody else, I really do because like during COVID, I just was like, oh, I know where you're at.

Like people were telling me they were noticing this or noticing that, but a lot of people were noticing birds. Because then they also remembered that I'd liked birds, vaguely in the back of their mind. But, so I'd had that quiet moment and I, something broke through and I realized there was something going on out there with those flying creatures, and a lot more than I thought.

And then I just, I entered into that world and it said, you don't leave. 

Zibby: And the rest is history. 

Lili: Yeah. 

Zibby: Can I read a couple quotes that I thought were really interesting? 

Lili: Yeah. 

Zibby: You said human nature can smell a rat. We know when something is superficial. General, a throwaway. Our survival depends on stories that connect us to a deeper part of ourselves and others.

Access to that depth requires care and work. Talk a little bit about that because it's so true. 

Lili: Yeah. I feel strongly about that. I, I've read some stuff about, neuro, from neuroscientists and in a ver, I'm a layman for sure, but I heard about when the brain doesn't light up, and that's not good for us, and that we're still evolving and we're still learning about our emotions.

And so as an actor. I'm doing, I'm part of that, showing what it's like to have a feeling. And so when an and when, so when an a, when a director says, oh, they won't understand that in Kansas you should do, you should cry like you should cry like a stereotypical crying, right? And I said, where you're underestimating the person in Kansas, and there's lots of ways to cry. And the problem is we keep seeing this one way, so that after years and years of just watching and taking all this in, we might think what we do is weird or so that's just a little example of it.

Zibby: Are all over Kansas as a result of this podcast.

Here's another quote, biophilia hypothesis asserts that humans are genetically predisposed to be attracted to nature. The most important skill I use in acting. I also use when I'm looking at birds. That skill is listening by, which I don't mean hearing what another actor is saying or the sound a bird is making.

So talk about the art of listening and how and what you do to become a great actress, but also a great birder. 

Lili: Yeah yeah, a neuroscientist, and this is in the book somewhere, but said. The difference between hearing is a sense and listening is the skill and the difference between the two is paying attention, and I loved that because first I realized it was a skill and I hadn't really thought of it as a skill, which means that I can work at it.

And I can get better at it, and I don't have to be perfect at it because you can't be, I, that's the other good news is there's no perfection, there's no pinnacle. So it's just it's forever in process. And so as an actor, I love listening as opposed to being in the moment. Which is something we're taught, or I want.

I want X. What that does is, first of all, being in the moment, I don't know what that is really. I don't know if I've been there. I don't know if I was good when I was there, yeah. But listening, I know when I'm not listening. I know when I am listening, and if I'm not listening. I can be gentle and just say, it's okay.

Just get back up. Get back and listen again. And to have, because also attention comes from the root of that is, is ra, I think, which is tension, which is. So it means we're it's not easy. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Lili: Paying attention's not easy, so I shouldn't have a good time while I'm paying attention. Or, and I shouldn't have to do it for a long time. It's okay if I do it in, be in spurts. 

Zibby: Interesting. Yeah, it's back to that school, school room. Like you have to pay attention. You have to. 

Lili: Exactly. Exactly. 

Zibby: Your birding has taken you everywhere. And I thought it was so interesting that when you were on location, I think in Santa Fe and you had a little bit of time on your hands and you're like, whenever I have a little time on my hands in this new city, I go to find the birds.

And first of all, I realize that's a great like question to ask people, like when you go to a new city, what is the first thing you do to make yourself feel at home? And I love how you answered that, right? 'Cause that's not something I would go to a bookstore, for instance. That's what I do whenever I go to a new place.

So tell me how, like finding the birds and going into these canyons or down these paths or, in these crazy parking lots of places you don't really know where you are, how this makes you feel at home in the world. 

Lili: That's right. As you're even describing it, I'm remembering those experiences and remembering how, what felt like just a not friendly, it's not that it wasn't friendly, it's that it's that it became so much more.

And so then when I'm driving on the highway and I'm passing something that just didn't have any meaning, and that looks nothing now has meaning to me because I explored behind that building off the highway, and I know there's life in there, and I know there's a river running by the highway and I know there's life in that.

And I feel there's life and I feel that I'm a part of it and it's rich and it's not a, it's not a kind of lonely kind of nothing place and. I just love feeling a part of, maybe I feel like innately not a part of or something, and so all these things make me feel a part of. 

Zibby: You talk in the book a couple times about your introversion and how sometimes even just being around birds makes you have to go home and regroup.

Lili: Exactly. I'm like with my friends, I'm like partying with my friends when I'm with birds and it's like I'm exhausted because also 'cause I've been paying attention and concentrating. And I'm just exhausted. I need a break. Some birders can keep going. I'm like, I'm done. I need a coffee. I'll meet you later.

Zibby: Yeah. Birding plus Starbucks. I loved that. That whole thing. And then you wrote about a time during one of the memorials for nine 11 when, I'm here in New York City where the, there's always the ghosts of the twin towers light up in the sky and how actually they are really affecting birds and how many bird injuries there can be because these artificial lights and how you were part of this like covert secret ops mission to save the birds in the light at like at some like back roof somewhere.

Oh my gosh. Like the way you told that. I feel like that should be like a scene for a movie. Oh my goodness. But it really speaks to like this intersection of what we do as humans and put into the world, and then how these beautiful natural creatures have to adapt and how you like emerge as the hero here trying to meld the two.

Lili: It's right, it's true. And it's it's not that I'm the hero, but that birds and humans are, we are here together. And when humans find ways to work with other humans to help, while anything wild is such a great story and this story, it took them at least seven years to even talk because and some of them still don't quite even understand what we're doing.

Wait, what? The bird, wait, what is your bird? It doesn't matter though. It's okay. They turn the lights out, and what I find so interesting about the nine 11 tribute is that it is literally shining a light on a bigger problem. Which is the light pollution just affecting lots of.

Lots of wild things, and affecting our relationship with the sky. They're trying to preserve the night sky as a natural landmark or something so that it has protections. 

Zibby: Unbelievable. And the wind with the world trade with the Empire State Building too. I just feel like the city of Manhattan is just like not the best place for birds.

Maybe they need to just go somewhere else and steer clear of all of our obstacles, 

Lili: But Central Park is amazing for birds. True. It's such a great, think about that round of green when they haven't seen for a while and then they have just and so many land in there and fuel up.

Zibby: My gosh. I love it. Yeah. You mentioned offhandedly in the book that you come from a family that owned hardware stores. What was that like? Hardware stores are such, this like time, like a relic, like I feel like they're one of the last bastions of like this, the real world, the way it used to be. What is that like?

What was that like for you? 

Lili: It was wonderful and it really was, it had all that stuff, like it had they wrote on paper bags, like the guys when you had two screws, 10 cents, and it was a big old register and so it, and I knew that all was fantastic stuff. Somehow I knew aesthetically that this was a beautiful store.

And I loved it. I love, and I love fixing things. I don't know if that was in my nature with, look, my dad was not a handyman at all. And he, sometimes we didn't even, I was like, where is a hammer? Where is a hammer? Why don't you even have a hammer? But I, he wasn't a handyman 'cause he was really a poet.

He just took it over 'cause of his father. But I loved the hardware store. I loved being there. I got it and I love them to this day, and I love fixing things. 

Zibby: Who knew? You were so handy. This is great information.

Let's talk a little about your acting. So I saw Mystic Pizza like everyone else in the world when it came out when I was 12, and now here I am, I'm 48 and we're finally talking. So that's lovely. I've been hanging out, just like waiting for this to happen. You have been this rare. As rare as many birds one might say, creature that has maintained a life of working actor hood forever.

Like what is the secret there and how does it feel like just navigating this rarefied world, so to speak? 

Lili: It's nice being older with wisdom. You earn this wisdom and well aware 

Zibby: that's the one, that's the one perk that I see so far. 

Lili: And it's a perk, boy. It's a perk, right? And so because of this wisdom, I'm able to see that it ebbs and flows and that it, it comes and goes and hang in there.

You hang in there a day at a time, make things manageable and oh boy, the thing I keep. Thinking about now is just how nothing is personal. But you have to experience everything being personal in order to get to that. It's not personal, you know that. Yes. But acting can feel so personal no, you didn't get that part because you are not as good as, and it can just start to feel like.

Messed up, but you get through it. And one thing I think helped me a lot is I really did get early on, like I, I think it's really important to do things with people you love, because at the end of the day, the experience is really important and who knows if the thing's gonna come out or how it's gonna do and so on.

So that was always a criterion for me. And I think I might have helped a lot because I've always, even though the move, many movies never came out, but I had a great time. It's 

Zibby: similar to the writing world, which of course now you're also a part of here with this book, there's so many books and drawers, probably less costly than movies and cabinets or something, but// 

Lili: currency wise and I'm married to a poet, so you know Sure. And talk about poetry. Jesus. Yes. 

Zibby: I was actually just interviewing Miranda, Callie Heller, who has a poetry collection coming out soon. And we were talking that like poetry really needs a rebrand.

It's so perfect for this time starved lack of attention, speaking of attention economy, and yet there's this, and there's this perfect little thing on one page. That should be what people read, like your entry drug. 

Lili: Poetry talk. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lili: They've gotta start poetry talk. 

Zibby: Totally. I can't believe they don't have it.

Maybe after this we can get on there. Your husband can lead the way and 

Lili: Yes. Yes. 

Zibby: What was it like? Did you always want to write? Was that part of your. Goal in life to write a book, or where did this book come from? 

Lili: I've always wrote. But I didn't think I could write, like I thought I could only write screenplays or plays or, dialogue.

I can write dialogue, and then I had been working on a one woman show that was about the same stuff, and then I showed it to my manager after working on it for about five or six years, and he introduced me to a book agent. And David Kuhn, the book agent, said, why don't you send me an email about a bird you've observed?

And so I wrote him EI was, and then, so I wrote emails. Oh. Interesting. Which is such a smart way to start writing. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Lili: I knew I was what I was doing, but a lot of me was like, no, I'm writing an email and that's what's I'm writing an email. If anyone thinks I'm writing a book, shush.

No. 

Zibby: Yes. Otherwise, like your brain would get into no, I can't do this and da. 

Lili: Exactly. It's, you get strangled, so that was such a brilliant strategy, and so that's how I started. But I knew that I, the one woman show came about just because I knew this desire to talk to the love for birds.

It didn't feel right keeping it in. It just that didn't feel right either felt out of order.

Zibby: There's something really neat about reading. Someone else's what is someone else's passion, right? That is the best way to learn about something. Not from a textbook, but like someone like you who has found something that we all have in our lives and yet all of a sudden valued it in such a different way so that it brings richness to like our interactions with birds now because your, the way you see them, which is really cool.

Aw. Anyway, tell me more about these bins. So bins are the, the birder word for binoculars. So now I feel like I'm in the know on all of that. Tell me about the market, the two brands, the standoff between the manufacturers of the two bins, your lost bins, like it's all so dramatic.

Lili: I know, I know a bit the world of optics.

Like the, I'm going to the biggest week in American Bird Festival in a couple of days and there's a whole tent and it's called the Optics Tent. And talk about standoffs, man, I'm got those sellers, man. It's the tables of, it's a big deal and it's a lot of money, man. That's a big, yes, I did. I was Swarovski and now I'm over in Zeiss and and nobody even knows. Nobody even knows, I don't think Zeiss knows I'm having them. And I don't even know Swarovski knew that much that I think they might've known for a second and then they forgot. So nobody even knows. 

Zibby: Maybe you should do your movie, like the show should be now, like in the aftermath, now that you have all these stories like a coming of bird hood, if you will. That's right. 

Lili: Thank you. Thank you. 

Zibby: You're welcome. 

Lili: Yes. 

Zibby: You're gonna do that now? 

Lili: Get sponsored and I get some sponsorship. No, I love what you're saying because I've, because now I could probably do the show.

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lili: Because now I've know what it is now really well. 

Zibby: Yeah. 

Lili: But, so thanks for just nudging me 'cause no one's nudged me yet, but you just did it. 

Zibby: I'll be a permanent nudger. You'll be, I'll just you can just replay this episode and feel like you can do it because even if you're not interested in birds, God forbid, let's just say,.. 

Lili: Yeah,..

Zibby: You're interested in, you like, as human beings, we're interested in someone else's growth and discovery.

And I feel like part of that is, is this for you? 

Lili: Thank you. And I think that, and that was why I kept really trying to be myself, because as you said, it's the best way to learn. And also, it's like the only way someone's gonna tap into their love if my love is specific enough. 

Zibby: Yes. 

Lili: And honest enough.

Zibby: Totally.

Lili: And that's what I was hoping to get to. 'cause I, we all it's nice to connect into that thing that we, that brings us meaning. 

Zibby: Yeah. And even just your observations about people, about how like we should all, just, if you stand there looking up, is there some evolutionary thing where we all lift up our heads to see what's in the sky?

Like just all these little gems you have everywhere. It's sprinkled through. It's yeah, I don't know. What are we looking at? I miss it. 

Lili: I and I don't know why we all look up when someone else looks up. It's so interesting. 

Zibby: Yeah. I guess I'm afraid something's about to fall on me or, 

Lili: I guess I was wondering could, when I was reading like a little House on the Prairie and a Puma or some Jaguar jumped out of the tree and I thought, maybe that.

Zibby: Yeah.

Lili: Maybe those things jumped outta trees on us or snakes or something. 

Zibby: Totally. Yeah. Okay. So it's all just, okay. Yes. PSD from Little House on the Prairie Days and somehow we will get through it. 

Lili: I dunno the Bible that well, but did the snake come out of a tree?

Zibby: Gonna have to.. 

Lili: Dunno. Okay. 

Zibby: I'm gonna have to look into that. 

Lili: Stop me there. 

Zibby: Okay. Now that you've, now that you're in the book world and obviously your husband as well, but now that you've, entered this new, forest, so to speak, doing the book events, promoting blah, blah, blah, how are you finding it and how.

How does it compare to the acting world or not? Or just what do you think about? 

Lili: First of all, the book came out, but I didn't do any event until the following week. And I was working the night it came out and I'm an, a little bit of an isolator, as you can tell. I need to work on friend stuff and so I didn't really talk to anybody.

Zibby: I'll be your friend. It's okay. 

Lili: Thank you.

Zibby: This is an open plea for Lily to please make some friends.

Sorry, go on. 

Lili: So I realized that with movies, TV and theater, the data is in pretty fast.

The data is in either on with plays the next day after you open, and then with movies and TV you get, not with books, it's much quieter. And so next time if I do a book, I'm gonna make sure to take myself out the night it comes out.

And I'm gonna try to talk to people through the week so that I know that it exists. 'cause I, for a minute I was like, wait, is the fuck out? I don't wait. What's going on now? The q and as are very thoughtful, much deeper on not surprisingly, I'm really liking it. I'm really liking it. 

Zibby: Yeah, that there is that question, like there's so many books that come out, like you're wondering if your book is even out yet.

Sometimes it's like, how would we know? It's like the tree falling in the forest. 

Lili: Exactly. 

Zibby: Did someone put it on a table somewhere? 

Lili: Because I think like. How many came out the week? I don't know, 500? I don't know how many, but a lot came out and yeah, it's d it's, and I know with all the changes, of course with the way publishing has changed in press, and so it's even more different, because you might not even get reviewed, or you might not even get, yes. 

Zibby: Yeah. I saw, I knew about your book, but I feel like I learned so much about books also from other authors like Ada Calhoun posting about your event together. I was like, oh, that's amazing. Love her. That's great.

But I know it's funny how we find out, but then next thing you know, I'm reading Turning to Birds, and now I know all about birds and bins and that's just the way the world works. So thank you. Thank you for this. Thank you for this look at the way I see the world, it's now changed and that's the best thing a book can do.

Lili: Wonderful. 

Zibby: Okay. So thank you so much. 

Lili: Thank you. 

Zibby: Good luck making friends and.. 

Lili: Oh great. Okay. 

Zibby: The rest you and get on the One Woman Show. 

Lili: You're great. Thank you so much. 

Zibby: Okay, bye bye.