Ellen DeGeneres' eponymous talk show doesn't end until later this month, but Portia de Rossi is already thinking about what's next for her wife.
"Well, honestly, I just want you to do something that makes you really happy," the "Arrested Development" actress told her wife on "Ellen" on May 3. "But I want to make sure that you continue being a teacher because that's really what you've been for everybody."
She added, "I just feel like more than ever, we need love and light and laughter. So I hope that you continue to do something like that. Like stand-up, for example. Or, whatever."
Portia, Ellen's wife of 14 years, made it clear that she doesn't really have "an opinion" on Ellen's next move, but thinks standup comedy would be a natural progression.
Funny enough, there was a time when Portia wasn't thrilled with Ellen's comedy routine.
"When I did my special 'Relatable,' I did it after not doing stand-up for 15 years and she had never seen me do stand-up before," Ellen said. "She had seen my specials but she had never seen me live and she was petrified. She's like, 'Why do you want to do this to yourself?' She just, really, was against me doing stand-up again. And then ever since I've done it, she now can't wait to go back on the road. She wants me to tour. She wants me to do Vegas."
Portia then chimed in, "Yeah, I do! Because you're so good at it."
Elsewhere in the episode, Portia recalled watching the very first Ellen show back in September 2003 and remember the effect it had on her. At the time, Portia was still closeted.
"Ellen was kind of like the litmus test for young actors in Hollywood because we just, her success meant so much to us, it kind of meant, 'Can I be authentic and honest and still be able to pay the rent?' I remember watching the first episode of the show standing the entire time and I remember, I was alone, I remember saying out loud to the TV, 'She did it,'" Portia recalled. "Because you could just feel the magic – oh my gosh I'm emotional already – you could feel the magic of the show, and I just knew that it was going to be around for as long as you wanted it to be."