Designer Tom Ford and actor-singer Rita Wilson have been friends since they met at a charity benefit 25 years ago—not mere acquaintances, but people who vacation together (the highest tier of friendship, according to Ford). Ahead of the release of Wilson’s new album Now and Forever: Duets, which is out today, Ford interviewed Wilson about her process and what excites her about her latest record. Now and Forever: Duets is a collection of ’70s covers sung by Wilson and a medley of acclaimed artists. She sings Paul Simon’s “Slip Slidin’ Away” with Willie Nelson, and Fleetwood Mac’s “Songbird” with Josh Groban, among other numbers. Below, Ford and Wilson’s intimate conversation.
Tom Ford: I remember so clearly the evening we met. I was living in Paris, designing for Gucci, but in L.A. hosting a benefit for APLA (AIDS Project Los Angeles). We had transformed the Santa Monica airport runway into a giant outdoor nightclub. You and I were walking across the tarmac together and you were wearing a bronze, strapless, lamé dress and snake boots that I had designed that season and Tom [Hanks] was walking alongside of you and I just remember immediately feeling a connection with you.
Rita Wilson: I was so excited to be wearing that outfit. I still have it. I remember that I felt so comfortable with you and Richard [Buckley]. I couldn't believe that you were so incredibly successful and that what you were doing at Gucci was completely on fire and I kept thinking, how can he be so present when he is surrounded by all this, this event you were doing and all this success that you had, and all this press…
Ford: It was a fun evening, I had male and female go-go dancers on boxes as I recall.
Wilson: Yes, you did! And you gave out Gucci G-strings to everyone! Just another day in the life….
Ford: That was 25 years ago and after that we just stayed friends. More than friends really…I have always thought that there are different levels of friends: There are friends you have lunch with, friends you have dinner with, and then there are friends that you vacation with. Those are your real friends and we have been on so many vacations together!
Wilson: We have.
Ford: I want to say that one of the things that impresses me the most about you, is your drive and your fearlessness. You decided that after a successful career as an actress, that music was what you wanted to focus on, and you’ve done it. I think it's amazing. I mean this is your fifth album! Where does that confidence come from?
Wilson: No, it’s not confidence. It is looking inside of yourself and finding out what makes you happy. Music is the thing that has always given me an enormous amount of joy and satisfaction and so when I finally did my first album, AM/FM, which was also cover songs from the ’70s, I just thought “I’ll do this and have absolutely no expectations from it” but then the album was heard by someone at Decca, and I was signed to them and that is what gave me confidence.
Ford: How long ago was that? Fifteen years?
Wilson: No, I think it came out 10 years ago. 2012 was the first album.
Ford: My god, it seems to me like you have been doing this for a lot longer and I mean that in a good way. I guess it’s because you’re so established in the music industry now. It’s no longer “Oh, Rita Wilson, I didn’t know she could sing,” it’s more like “Oh yeah, have you heard Rita Wilson’s new album.” Incredible.
Wilson: Well, you know that because you have been there every step of the way with me on this.
Ford: I mean you were on Broadway, you’ve performed at the Sydney Opera House, Disney Concert Hall, at the Stagecoach Festival, and the Grand Ole Opry! I mean come on! Tell me about your new album of duets, which is great by the way. How did you choose the pieces and the artists that you worked with?
Wilson: Well, I would say that the selection of songs really came from, maybe, starting from 100 to 150, somewhere in that range of things, that touched me personally and that I loved.
Ford: Wow. Really? That many?
Wilson: Maybe less than that but we kept making a playlist. I feel like it was something insane like that because we kept revising this playlist and then what happened was as we started approaching artists to duet with me, I would give them a selection of songs, and inevitably the artist always chose the song that I would have wanted to do with them.
Ford: But how did you choose the artists?
Wilson: Sometimes it started with songs, sometimes it started with artists that I admire.
Ford: So, you would just listen to a song, and you would think this sounds like so and so should do a cover? Or did you want to go to the original person who did that song?
Wilson: No, I wanted to make sure that I didn't go to an artist and say “I want to do one of your songs” because I thought that it would be more interesting for them to do someone else’s song. One of the songs that I thought would be a good choice was Paul Simon’s “Slip Slidin’ Away.”
Ford: And you did that with Willie Nelson.
Wilson: I did that with Willie Nelson, and I thought…
Ford: How old is he now?
Wilson: He’ll be 90, he’s 89 right now. He is thriving! So, Willie had also covered a couple of Paul Simon songs and so I figured he would be open to more of Paul’s songs, and I had back-ups for Willie if that didn't work but I thought that one would be a good one for us.
Ford: My favorites on the album are “Where Is the Love” with Smokey Robinson and “If” with Tim McGraw. I also really love “I’ll Be There” with Jimmie Allen and “Without You” with Vince Gill and “Songbird.” I mean they were all great, but those struck me. Do you consider these love songs?
Wilson: I totally consider them love songs.
Ford: What makes a love song, what is that?
Wilson: You know it’s interesting as there is such a vulnerability that comes through in some writing, and that I think it's always the thing I’ve been attracted to because (I’ll go back to the love song thing in a minute) but the autobiographical thing, how that struck me was that I remember listening to these songs driving in the car with my mom. For example, the Bread song that I did with Tim McGraw. My mom could always spot a hit before it was a hit by the way. She thought of songs as stories and I realized that was a completely different way to listen to a song, so I started relating to songs as stories and not just melodies that you can sing along to. When I look at the selection of songs on this album it's really about that, about the story.
Ford: Stories are so rare now in music, lyrics that mean something are rare, you know when I play an older song for Jack, he’s like, “Why are they talking so much?”
Wilson: I think the lyrics are there in a lot of songs today.
Ford: But we just don’t understand the lingo of today’s world?
Wilson: Yeah, but sometimes it’s just in the delivery system. Do you know what I mean? The songs that I selected finally were very clear. It was the ’70s really. That particular era, if you think about it, was the beginning of the birth of the singer songwriter, so you had people writing about their own life experiences. Joni Mitchell, Carole King, Carly Simon, James Taylor, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Jackson Browne; all those songwriters were telling their own stories.
Ford: Was singing with a good friend like Tim McGraw different from singing with someone who you admired and respected but were not as close to?
Wilson: With every artist that I sang with it felt almost surreal.
Ford: But Tim and Faith break into that level of friendship of “friends that I would vacation with.”
Wilson: What I think was different was asking Tim to do something that was out of his genre, because I know Tim loves the ’70s and he is an encyclopedia of ’70s songs and he has everything memorized, so when I asked him about “If” he immediately said yes and I've never heard him sound like this.
Ford: And it was one of my favorites, I mean seriously, one of my favorites.
Wilson: Thank you for saying that. He just crushed it, I think.
Ford: What’s inspiring you musically or culturally right now?
Wilson: I am inspired by, and I don't know how to say this without it sounding almost obvious or even taken in the wrong way, but I’m really inspired by truth. Or maybe a better way to describe it is vulnerability. I feel when people are vulnerable and they’re being honest about something, that it is inspiring because it's so hard to get to that place. Everyone thinks it's so easy to do but it’s not. So, I think I would say truth and vulnerability.
Ford: Do you have confidence when you break out and do new things?
Wilson: Never, no!
Ford: Really?
Wilson: No, I don’t, but if I feel compelled to do something then I must overcome that fear and overcome all those doubts. Music has enabled me in a way to be more the artist than I feel that I am. I still act, and I will do things that come up that are interesting. You know, I’ve said this before, but I’ve exhausted the canon on warm, kind, wholesome, nurturing, mother, wife, sister, and friend roles.
Ford: So maybe you should play somebody really mean and wicked!
Wilson: I need to play wicked! Exactly, that would be amazing!
Ford: The word that’s only used for female dogs in a kennel…
Wilson: Exactly.
Ford: Who is a new young artist who you think is great?
Wilson: I think Lizzo is fantastic. I like Billie Eilish a lot. She’s so original and so confident.
Ford: You are not only a talented actress and a talented singer, but the world doesn’t know what a great athlete you are! I mean you are a great skier, tennis player, water skier…. I mean you’re a jock! People don’t know that about you. I mean not many people know that “Rita looks beautiful on a red carpet, but she can also water ski!”
Wilson: I love sports, like sometimes if people said to me, “Okay, you can't be in the arts what would you do?” I would either be an athlete, or I would be a CIA or FBI agent!
Ford: Coming back to music. The enduring appeal of the ’70s in music is amazing. I was watching America’s Got Talent with Jack the other night and there were all these young performers, and everybody was doing ’70s music.
Wilson: Exactly!
Ford: They were all like 18 years old.
Wilson: There’s something I want to ask about ’70s music, and I find it puzzling and I hope someone can answer for me. Why is it that ’70s music is liked by a younger generation?
Ford: You answered it earlier! It’s because it was that first time you have the singer-songwriter and songs were about something real and something, you know, that is “forever” in a way. I mean let’s face it, nothing is new under the sun. We have all felt heartache, we have all felt joy and hopefully we have all felt love. The lyrics of ’70s songs are relatable and still resonate.
Wilson: I was at an Eagles show and I was jamming…
Ford: Oh, I love The Eagles.
Wilson: Same! I was dancing, singing, and having a great time and there were these two guys behind me, they were young, and they knew every single word and every single lyric. I turned around at one point and I’m like, “Why do you guys know all of this music?” One guy was Irish, one guy was English and the Irish one said, “If you had been to as many Eagles shows as my parents took me to, you would know all the words too” and then I realized who I was talking to! It was Niall Horan from One Direction and Lewis Capaldi, and those two guys are also writing from a songwriter’s point of view, so those lyrics that we talked about earlier about love stories and love songs, they exist and there are young people using their voices and their talents to sing those songs and they're out there you just have to look for them.
Ford: You are right. I guess that they are perhaps just harder to find.
Wilson: You remind me that even songwriters today like Olivia Rodrigo…
Ford: Oh, she’s so beautiful! Jack is in love with her. We saw her perform at Glastonbury this summer.
Wilson: She’s so beautiful and so talented but she’s also doing that thing of writing from her own personal experience.
Ford: You and I could talk forever and ever. And we are not even gossiping yet! But is there anything else you want to say or talk about? Words of wisdom?
Wilson: Well, I just think that it is important to find the thing that makes you deeply happy. It takes a lot of being honest with yourself about everything and so what that might mean is asking yourself the question: Okay, am I going to have to change my life to do this? Let’s say you’ve always wanted to paint. Paint away! Take an amazing class, go to community college, take that improv class or dance class, the joy of creating those things, or doing the things that you want to do exists. It doesn't mean you have to do it on some public level, it just means that you should do it if it’s something that gives you joy.
Ford: So, you should divorce your wife, become a pole dancer, get a tattoo on your inner thigh? I’m kidding!
Wilson: If you have always wanted to do that!
Ford: My inner goal is just to take a nap!
Wilson: Then you must make that happen!