Speaker 1: So you're listening to a Mamma Mia podcast.
Speaker 2: Mamma Mere acknowledges the traditional owners of land and waters
Speaker 2: that this podcast is recorded on the nineties. I was there,
Speaker 2: so were you. If you're mid and everyone's welcome at
Speaker 2: this chaotic table. So it's not law, but if you
Speaker 2: truly fit the gen X definition, the nineties was likely
Speaker 2: or misspent youth era. I was nineteen to twenty nine.
Speaker 2: In that decade, A lot of things happened for me,
Speaker 2: for the world, for the culture, grunge, britpop lads, friends,
Speaker 2: rave Slackers, Tarantino, Clueless, Titanic, Whitney, Alanis, the Spice Girls.
Speaker 2: I remember watching Thelma and Louise and thinking that feminism
Speaker 2: had triumphed, Things were sorted. I remember swooning over Keanu
Speaker 2: saving Sandra from a speeding bus, being unperturbed by Gwyneth's
Speaker 2: head in a box in seven, seeing Cameron Diaz her
Speaker 2: hair sky highwood sperm in the sub about Mary and
Speaker 2: not thinking that was a gross humiliation. I had a
Speaker 2: lot of adventures in the nineties, A lot of misadventures too.
Speaker 2: I fell in love a couple of times, I got
Speaker 2: my heart broken, I broke a couple myself, I made
Speaker 2: some complicated decisions, I traveled across the world, like all
Speaker 2: of our twenties. Perhaps it was the best of times,
Speaker 2: it was the worst of times, but it was a
Speaker 2: time I remember watching Muriel's Wedding. It was the same
Speaker 2: year that I saw Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, a
Speaker 2: couple of years after I saw a Strictly Ballroom and
Speaker 2: Romper Stomper. Why was a Mancunion living in London watching
Speaker 2: movies made on the opposite side of the planet. Well,
Speaker 2: it was my job. My first proper magazine job was
Speaker 2: for a publication for Ossie's and Kiwi's, living and working
Speaker 2: in London, and I suppose that working there started the
Speaker 2: rest of my life, not that I knew that at
Speaker 2: the time. What I did, though, is that these movies
Speaker 2: were incredible, and everybody everywhere watched them, washing up from
Speaker 2: a sea of cool girls, crazy pixie dream girls. Muriel's
Speaker 2: Wedding was about the traps set for women, and it
Speaker 2: had abba, but it also had spiky, dark edges and
Speaker 2: tragic undertones, sometimes lost among the memories of the catchphrases
Speaker 2: and the bad dancing. A bit like the nineties in general, Really,
Speaker 2: the boundaries of our eras are only really clear in hindsight,
Speaker 2: no matter how much we might want to declare our
Speaker 2: current status. I'm in my mid era. Obviously it's complicated
Speaker 2: and confusing here, but it's also full of glorious relief
Speaker 2: and regrowth, a little bit like a midlife bush that
Speaker 2: hasn't been lost to laser. But did I know when
Speaker 2: all the other eras stopped and started? And did I
Speaker 2: know when I was in them just how much change
Speaker 2: was going to come? Of course not. But how do
Speaker 2: you view your eras from the distance of mid Are
Speaker 2: you compassionate to that version of you scathing, angry at
Speaker 2: what she had to put up with? Do you wish
Speaker 2: she'd done more or less about more or less? Do
Speaker 2: you miss her? Do you smile about that nineties version
Speaker 2: of you who thought she was free sexually professionally, but
Speaker 2: really was dodging errant hands and mouths, being talked and
Speaker 2: passed over, being ranked and rated, always having to prove
Speaker 2: that yes you could take a joke, Yes you could
Speaker 2: put your pesky feminine parts aside to work like a man,
Speaker 2: drink like a man, and have sex like a man. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 2: it was a weird era, and here we are looking
Speaker 2: back at it.
Speaker 3: Hello.
Speaker 2: I am Holly Wainwright, and I am mid, midlife, midfamily,
Speaker 2: mid panic about the world. Really, the thing that I
Speaker 2: love most about making this show Mid is conversations for
Speaker 2: Generation X women who are anything. But is that I've
Speaker 2: never had a boring conversation with a woman who comes
Speaker 2: to sit at this table. Mid women might be many things,
Speaker 2: but we are not boring. Rachel Griffiths wouldn't know boring
Speaker 2: if it pooed on a lap. I don't think I
Speaker 2: need to introduce her, but if I do, there was
Speaker 2: a clue in my intro. Muriel's wedding gave Melbournie in
Speaker 2: Rachel's career what she calls a fast start, and she
Speaker 2: has lived plenty of eras since then. She was deep
Speaker 2: inside the Hollywood machine for a while, in big movies
Speaker 2: and bigger TV shows, getting an Oscar nomination for Hillary
Speaker 2: and Jackie, winning a Golden Globe for Six Feet Under,
Speaker 2: and many times nominated in the Beloved Brothers and Sisters.
Speaker 2: So there was that, and then there was her moving
Speaker 2: back home era with her two small babies, her activist
Speaker 2: era that may have never ended, although she does have
Speaker 2: quite a different take on it now and her creator era.
Speaker 2: She imagined, produced and hustled into being the iconic Australian
Speaker 2: movie Ride Like a Girl, which she directed, and she
Speaker 2: co created the incredible ABCTV series Total Control with Blackfellow Films,
Speaker 2: which ran for three seasons until just last year and
Speaker 2: entirely changed the way she saw power and politics. I
Speaker 2: wanted to talk to Rachel about being a gen x
Speaker 2: icon of sorts, blasting into our consciousness in the middle
Speaker 2: of the nineties and then rising up alongside the women
Speaker 2: when now or seeing having what's being termed comebacks. She
Speaker 2: says she never felt like a fuckable ngenou and that
Speaker 2: which pissed her off at times in her career may
Speaker 2: have served her well as she's grown right up. But
Speaker 2: we ended up talking about a lot more of non
Speaker 2: boring other stuff, her long marriage and how it's in
Speaker 2: its Woodya era, her ADHDAF diagnosis, and maybe why the
Speaker 2: eighties and nineties were the worst years for women in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: and how we stay optimistic while the world's well, you know,
Speaker 2: what the world's doing, And of course we talk about
Speaker 2: the TV show Madam, which is on nine right now,
Speaker 2: and why she finally said yes to playing a madam,
Speaker 2: a role that she's been offered many times before. Rachel
Speaker 2: Griffiths is bloody great. Enjoy this, Oh, and hang around
Speaker 2: at the end, friends, because I have some exciting news
Speaker 2: about a holiday, not mine, yours. Rachel Griffiths, do you
Speaker 2: like being Mid? How do you feel about the gen
Speaker 2: X middle? Because I feel like there's that we're supposed
Speaker 2: to sit into binary camps. Either I'm in my power
Speaker 2: I've never felt more myself or what fresh hell is this?
Speaker 2: Where do you say?
Speaker 3: I feel so different now that two of my three
Speaker 3: through school. So I think the answer i'd give you
Speaker 3: today might be a little different from two years ago,
Speaker 3: and something that the load, not that you stop parenting
Speaker 3: when they finished school in are eighteen, but the sense
Speaker 3: of getting them, you know, to the end is of
Speaker 3: that process and helping them navigate the roller coaster of
Speaker 3: teenage issues, especially with COVID. It was just a lot,
Speaker 3: you know, Like I think like twenty twenty was probably
Speaker 3: my peak hell, Mid and I had, you know, we
Speaker 3: had aging parents who weren't doing well, my husband's father
Speaker 3: and nursing Karen. We're being locked out of being able
Speaker 3: to see him, so kind of feeling like you're failing
Speaker 3: your parents. You've kind of failing your kids because who
Speaker 3: was equipped, particularly in Melbourne to help them, you know,
Speaker 3: wake up, not get rest, eat something, and then go
Speaker 3: on a zoom for eight hours. And I think that
Speaker 3: was just a real hell. In one way, sometimes it
Speaker 3: family time became less, you know, less busy, less stressed.
Speaker 3: But it just felt so new to navigate. And then
Speaker 3: you're going through your you know, your PERI beenopausal, you're
Speaker 3: not exercising, you're stacking on the way, you know, you're
Speaker 3: trying not to talk about that in a house. You know,
Speaker 3: it's sensitive teenage daughters who you know, whose relationship to
Speaker 3: their bodies and the world and food have also changed
Speaker 3: because they're not playing sport. And it was just it
Speaker 3: really was a really really bizarre time. And to be so,
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't get many opportunities, if any, to
Speaker 3: be fabulous, and I think like I sloth around with
Speaker 3: you know, unwashed hair and egg on me, but every
Speaker 3: now and then the full team arrive and just remind
Speaker 3: me of just how fabulous I can be.
Speaker 1: And it was twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: There was no there was no fabulousness, and I remember
Speaker 3: I think we were nominated.
Speaker 1: I was nominated for I don't know if.
Speaker 3: It was the Logies or the actors for Total Control.
Speaker 3: And I came down to six o'clock dinner wearing my
Speaker 3: gold LOGI dress in fully heals, and my kids are
Speaker 3: just like the fuck.
Speaker 2: They had not seen this side of you for some time.
Speaker 1: It was just it was data.
Speaker 3: It was like I never understood data and the whole
Speaker 3: movement of the crazy art that was made after World
Speaker 3: War One and the pandemic, which we kind of didn't
Speaker 3: add on. All I knew was art from that period
Speaker 3: was crazy and people had like naked painting parties and
Speaker 3: you know, you go to costume balls look at you know,
Speaker 3: in these crazy costumes and nothing was too wild.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of like I was like, oh, I
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 3: I get it because I think after this we're all
Speaker 3: going data. We are, so I'm going dada. My middle,
Speaker 3: My middle is defined by data.
Speaker 2: Did you feel like coming out of that? And I
Speaker 2: know it's like some people don't like the term that
Speaker 2: we came out of COVID at all, but like it was.
Speaker 3: It was in moment, was a whole We came you
Speaker 3: all some faster than others, some faster than they were
Speaker 3: legally allowed to do.
Speaker 1: But you know, looking back, I can't blame them for
Speaker 1: just going. I can't beat this hole any longer.
Speaker 2: And teenagers are meant to be out there in the world,
Speaker 2: causing trouble, experimenting, pushing boundaries, and they were all forced
Speaker 2: to do that in their bedrooms. But coming out of that,
Speaker 2: and at the same time as your kids moving into
Speaker 2: that new phase of independence, did you feel a big
Speaker 2: release and a big like, Okay, now I can settle
Speaker 2: into the next act, whatever that is.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, we made a decision, my husband and I
Speaker 3: to kind of take long service leave. I was the
Speaker 3: daughter of a teacher, so this magical long service leave
Speaker 3: was it was. It did exist on the horizon of
Speaker 3: you know, my mother's imagination. It's like, no, I can't retire,
Speaker 3: I've got four more only four more years to long
Speaker 3: service leave. And it was just it really was the
Speaker 3: gold at the end of the rainbow that they would
Speaker 3: dream of. So I think coming out of COVID, I
Speaker 3: thought I need to take long service leave. And twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one and I'd worked quite a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you've been working, You've been working very solidly
Speaker 2: for a lot.
Speaker 1: I'd given it a hard I.
Speaker 2: Listened to the interview you did for No Filter with
Speaker 2: Me of Friedman just when Ride Like a Girl was
Speaker 2: coming out, and that was like twenty seventeen eight.
Speaker 1: It was twenty nineteen, yes, so just before.
Speaker 2: And you sounded in that like it's a great interview,
Speaker 2: is fascinating, but you had obviously been pouring every bit
Speaker 2: of your heart and soul into making that movie happen,
Speaker 2: from conception to release to promotion and then total control again,
Speaker 2: is your your project? I mean, I know with Black
Speaker 2: Fellow Films.
Speaker 3: Yeah, co created that was also I was making that
Speaker 3: in two thousand and I know it's coming out in
Speaker 3: twenty nineteen as well.
Speaker 2: So that's pedal to the metal. And you were kind
Speaker 2: of sounded in the interview with Mia as if you know,
Speaker 2: you knew that you'd kind of been hadn't been around
Speaker 2: that much for family life, and you'd been feeling that
Speaker 2: and you were you know, do.
Speaker 3: You I brought COVID on myself. I brought a global pandemic.
Speaker 3: How about you stay home? It didn't quite turn out
Speaker 3: like that because I was attached to projects, you know,
Speaker 3: where my attachment was kind of critical to finance and
Speaker 3: for me to pull out of them may mean that
Speaker 3: crew for that, you know, it was their only job
Speaker 3: in eighteen months. So I was border jumping legally. You know,
Speaker 3: I think we're the last people into South Australia and
Speaker 3: doing I think I did four or five full quarantines.
Speaker 3: I did a full quarantine to get to a family
Speaker 3: member who was in really bad shape. It was yeah,
Speaker 3: So I and the kids had their bags packed after
Speaker 3: we were separated for quite a long time, and I
Speaker 3: had just because my producers were, you know, going through
Speaker 3: the process of getting me exemptions to travel not overseas
Speaker 3: to work. I kind of had an idea of, you know,
Speaker 3: when things were opening or closing, and you know, as
Speaker 3: soon as borders were open for a second that, you know,
Speaker 3: I had the kids on a plane and I got
Speaker 3: my girls out to do two projects and we were
Speaker 3: going between New Southwest and Queensland legally. And I hadn't
Speaker 3: seen my husband and son actually for about five months,
Speaker 3: which was the longest we've ever been apart. And I
Speaker 3: was in Queensland and Melbourne finally opened and so they
Speaker 3: were flying in into the Gold Coast and while we
Speaker 3: were in Queensland. Something that had gone crazy in Queensland.
Speaker 3: So Victoria Victoria said, oh, we're closing the borders to
Speaker 3: Queensland at midnight tonight. So my husband derived with my son.
Speaker 3: I got them on the last flight out of Ballaner
Speaker 3: Troves and we sat there eating chips, hugging. I was
Speaker 3: crying at the airport at Ballaner and I got back
Speaker 3: on the plane. You know, my son was doing Year
Speaker 3: twelve and it was just I was really mad. Anyway,
Speaker 3: last year we took a sabbatical, we took our long
Speaker 3: service leave, and you know, I said to my husband,
Speaker 3: you know, if we don't actually hang out in a
Speaker 3: non transactional way, you know, we'll be those couples as
Speaker 3: soon as the last kid gets their VCE exams. It's
Speaker 3: usually after Christmas, sometime between Christmas, and you know, the
Speaker 3: we're divorcing. So we're just going to look at each
Speaker 3: other and go, do I know you? So we took
Speaker 3: three months. We went to Europe and we had a
Speaker 3: rule that you couldn't say, could you would you? Did
Speaker 3: you have your which really is pretty much However, you
Speaker 3: explain that to me, well, I think when you're in
Speaker 3: the weeds, of kid, you know, three three kids? In
Speaker 3: life is busy. It's just so easy to go. You know,
Speaker 3: could you do this? Did you sign up for parenting?
Speaker 3: Can you cover me?
Speaker 1: Pick up?
Speaker 3: And it's you should have and yeah and well hopefully
Speaker 3: not should have, should have, could have? But could your
Speaker 3: would you? Did you have your not watier? So we
Speaker 3: had to move to a wader. What are your mindset?
Speaker 3: What do you feel like for dinner? And do you
Speaker 3: want to do you want to go for a walk?
Speaker 3: What do you think of?
Speaker 1: And dig you like?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: I think it was many you know what do you
Speaker 1: think not? Did you like? Yes?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: But what do you think like?
Speaker 3: More open questions and anyway that we will looking. It
Speaker 3: was a really amazing time. My husband didn't believe we
Speaker 3: were going to We're going, I said to my agents.
Speaker 3: Unless it's White Loadus season three, don't call me.
Speaker 2: Is that the call that everybody's waiting for?
Speaker 3: I think it is, because also we just would have
Speaker 3: done long service in Thailand.
Speaker 1: It would have been fine'll call, but we were literally
Speaker 1: the other way there putting in it.
Speaker 3: And my husband's like, is this we actually we actually
Speaker 3: I said, yeah, we're actually going.
Speaker 1: We're actually.
Speaker 3: It won't be you know, the fool three. I said,
Speaker 3: I know, that's that's what I need. I need long
Speaker 3: service leave. And then I think we were just shy
Speaker 3: that we dragged our fifteen year old and pretended she
Speaker 3: wasn't there. And she goes, when is this effing long
Speaker 3: service sabbatical? She because, when is this sabbatical over? Like,
Speaker 3: I am fifteen, I am not meant to be hanging
Speaker 3: out with my parents.
Speaker 2: I were like enjoying some kind of exactly.
Speaker 3: She was the third wheel on the kind of second honeymoon,
Speaker 3: and we're like, oh, yeah, that's a bit cruel.
Speaker 1: I will ask you.
Speaker 2: That's really funny. I like, after this shortbreak, Rachel Griff's
Speaker 2: and I pay homage to Onon Taylor Swift by discussing eras,
Speaker 2: the ones Rachel has already lived and the one she's
Speaker 2: in now stay with us. I assumed that it was
Speaker 2: relatively successful, this experiment because you are still together, so
Speaker 2: that's it. Yeah, that's true. But in terms of your
Speaker 2: relationship with work, because one of the good things I
Speaker 2: think about being older is you kind of can look
Speaker 2: back on your life as these almost series of eras
Speaker 2: without wanting to.
Speaker 1: Be I'm like oh, i've heard errors.
Speaker 2: Well, you definitely have had eras. And I was thinking
Speaker 2: about how you've been inside the Hollywood machinery, everything from
Speaker 2: nominated to an Academy Award, to winning the Golden Globe,
Speaker 2: to being on the really high profile TV shows. You've
Speaker 2: been inside production directing, you've always been adjacent to politics.
Speaker 2: You've had all You've seen a lot of stuff, And
Speaker 2: I was wondering about your relationship to work. If you've
Speaker 2: had those moments where you go, I've got all the
Speaker 2: things you're supposed to want and it's not what it's
Speaker 2: meant to be, And if that's always been the thing
Speaker 2: that's shifted your gears.
Speaker 3: I think it is interesting how you, you know, reframe
Speaker 3: your experiences and feelings about yourself as you age through
Speaker 3: different lenses. You know, you spend a bit of your
Speaker 3: twenties seeing things through the lens of kind of recovering
Speaker 3: cultural catholic and when you kind of them, you know,
Speaker 3: we're seeing things through third fourth wave feminism, which is
Speaker 3: really helpful for me because feminism was a bit of
Speaker 3: a kind of dirty word. I think, you know, they
Speaker 3: made it dirty for the exes so that we kind
Speaker 3: of give up the cause, and I think we got
Speaker 3: really lazy because we thought it was nasty. Not all
Speaker 3: of us smart girls didn't buy that gas lighting.
Speaker 1: Hey, you loss to you.
Speaker 3: I was one of those dumb girls that internalize that misogyny.
Speaker 2: We're all just like the guys. Now, we're all invited
Speaker 2: to the party, and so we're here. Will I do
Speaker 2: what we're you know exactly?
Speaker 3: And I think I having kids, you you've you know,
Speaker 3: the nature nurture and all of that kind of gets reframed.
Speaker 3: But look, I am adhd as F and I have
Speaker 3: always needed something. That's If I don't have something really
Speaker 3: strong that my imagination is dancing with persistently, you know,
Speaker 3: my brain tends to attack itself and.
Speaker 1: Attack the self.
Speaker 3: I think I became accidentally the actor journey like took
Speaker 3: off faster and higher and more wonderfully than I ever.
Speaker 1: Expected, being in that after Memorial, yeah, after.
Speaker 3: Muriel and getting on these opportunities, and it's you know,
Speaker 3: that's a very three months, you know, Thomas Arty, Thomas Arty.
Speaker 3: You know I read about early Victoria in England or
Speaker 3: but the lead time and the immersion, you know, it
Speaker 3: doesn't fully always satisfy the how long you have been
Speaker 3: thinking about things, and you know, I've thought a lot
Speaker 3: about women and leadership from when I was studying politics,
Speaker 3: and you know, total control apart from the first nations
Speaker 3: kind of aspect of it is very much a continuation
Speaker 3: of like my first year politics essay, like some of
Speaker 3: these ideas, you know, things you just haven't found. You know.
Speaker 3: It's the kind of themes of the understanding of the
Speaker 3: universe that you know, if you're a mathematician, it's maths problems,
Speaker 3: and you know, if if you're kind of my brain,
Speaker 3: it's you know, how did the Holocaust happen?
Speaker 1: How did that happen?
Speaker 3: You know, and you never really got an answer, and
Speaker 3: then right now I feel like my brain is still going.
Speaker 1: Oh, oh, this is this is how it happens.
Speaker 3: Like, you know, the world I never thought I live
Speaker 3: in a world that's moving towards a cruelty or or
Speaker 3: a moral you know, is shewing any kind of true
Speaker 3: kind of moral reckoning, not moralizing, but leaving you know,
Speaker 3: to almost take deeply moral positions. Now he's woke, and
Speaker 3: you know, so I go, oh, this has happened. But
Speaker 3: I've been thinking about these things my whole life, So
Speaker 3: I guess as this content maker.
Speaker 1: A lot of that is just my brain I get
Speaker 1: hooked on.
Speaker 2: You know, will you diagnose ADHD late? Yes, so it's
Speaker 2: a relatively recent and did it fall? Did it put
Speaker 2: a lot of pieces into place for you? Has it
Speaker 2: been really helpful and understanding.
Speaker 3: That they do say that, You know, it's when you're
Speaker 3: on a journey with your children, you look at yourself
Speaker 3: and go, oh, yes, it's yeah. It explained a lot
Speaker 3: about certainly my father. I think you know, my brother
Speaker 3: may have been diagnosed as a child. It is that
Speaker 3: kind of women women thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And people were like, it's naughty boys, it's not.
Speaker 3: I've always like different spicy girls are my favorite because
Speaker 3: I know they're not judging me by the same kind
Speaker 3: of manual that I've never got the translation for, you know,
Speaker 3: as not just the mean goals, because I think.
Speaker 1: That's too tropy, but just those girls.
Speaker 3: That you know, just walk confidently through society with a
Speaker 3: kind of clarity about these you know, appropriate interpersonal interactions.
Speaker 3: You know they're not whereas you know, I'm just a
Speaker 3: ping pong ball bouncing off societes. So I've always felt
Speaker 3: safe with neurospicy girls.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally understand that. I've heard you say quite
Speaker 2: a bit though, that those years of the acting years,
Speaker 2: where you might have been on the big, shiny shows,
Speaker 2: you didn't actually have much control or input at all.
Speaker 2: And so do you feel like you've been getting older
Speaker 2: and more comfortable in lots of ways? Has also been
Speaker 2: about trying to regain control and the projects you work
Speaker 2: on now you get to do that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny that idea of control. I definitely fell
Speaker 3: out of control. I wasn't motivated to get control, except
Speaker 3: I knew that the only way to not feel out
Speaker 3: of control is to no longer be under contract. And
Speaker 3: I did two five year stints that could have gone
Speaker 3: to seven, and it was an amazing opportunity that fantastic
Speaker 3: creatives working with the best people.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't change it for the world.
Speaker 3: But I did fill out of control because you know,
Speaker 3: each week a script would arrive that I hadn't you know,
Speaker 3: I hadn't signed on for in the way that you
Speaker 3: know in a play or a film, the consent is
Speaker 3: that you have pretty much the full document. You know,
Speaker 3: you have a chat with the director, and any mass
Speaker 3: you know, any big changes to that document can be
Speaker 3: negotiated with agents once you've signed on, if they completely
Speaker 3: change the premise and you know where you're filming and
Speaker 3: a whole bunch of other things, you can't got a
Speaker 3: right to God, this is not working for me anymore.
Speaker 3: But once you're on a TV show, you are out
Speaker 3: of control. You signed on to one pilot and five
Speaker 3: years later you have no consent and.
Speaker 2: New pages are arriving all the time, and new characters
Speaker 2: doing all kinds.
Speaker 3: Of things, all kinds of things, and you know your
Speaker 3: character might be doing things, but in the end, it's
Speaker 3: your body and your emotions that are actually having to
Speaker 3: live with them.
Speaker 2: You know, in the projects that you've been bringing to
Speaker 2: life in the last I mean more than ten years,
Speaker 2: I suppose, but you've had much more input and been
Speaker 2: able to frame that much more clearly. But before we
Speaker 2: move on from Hollywood, I wanted to ask you what
Speaker 2: you think about at the minute. There's a lot of
Speaker 2: talk about how the gen x icons of your time,
Speaker 2: your Kidman's, your Demi Moor's, your Angelina Joli's, are all
Speaker 2: having moments again and that it's kind of being seen.
Speaker 2: And I've spoken about this, and I'd love to know
Speaker 2: what you think that maybe we have dented that agism
Speaker 2: in Hollywood that used to be you're forty or you're thirty,
Speaker 2: and you're playing now just either wronged wife or you know,
Speaker 2: mart and mum or whatever. Do you think that's true
Speaker 2: or do you think it's because we've kind of shifted
Speaker 2: the goalposts around what we think women of a certain
Speaker 2: age look like and all those kinds.
Speaker 1: Look I think it's that, And.
Speaker 3: I definitely think we now understand that, you know, women
Speaker 3: women watch television. Women are probably still in charge of
Speaker 3: which streamers are on the platforms and are being paid
Speaker 3: for by the monthly subscriptions. And because of that, this
Speaker 3: audience is being served. Women my age aren't scrolling TikTok
Speaker 3: to the same degree, so they're still committed to long form,
Speaker 3: perhaps more so.
Speaker 1: There is an audience there.
Speaker 3: And then I think the other thing is, you know,
Speaker 3: to speak of those kind of icons like to me,
Speaker 3: and I don't think Nicole really ever stopped having She's
Speaker 3: had heras. I don't think she's I mean, she's her
Speaker 3: moments only paused by kind of you know, a refresh
Speaker 3: and a regrounding, and she has another one. But we
Speaker 3: are entering an age where it's really really hard to
Speaker 3: become a movie star.
Speaker 2: So so you think the established ones.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that, you know, they have brand. You know,
Speaker 3: I want to see back to the future for you know,
Speaker 3: because you know, there is a nostalgia in there is
Speaker 3: a comfort.
Speaker 1: There's there. There truly are very few.
Speaker 3: True movie stars, you know under forty and that is
Speaker 3: that's a good thing in that you know, the the actors,
Speaker 3: there is more diverse actors, it's less concentrated, there's more
Speaker 3: opportunities to a point, but very few. You know, there's
Speaker 3: very few Charlemae and there's you know, you can have
Speaker 3: a moment, will you have a decade or will you
Speaker 3: have four decades? Like Nicole, I think it's I think
Speaker 3: it's really really going to become increasingly rare.
Speaker 2: That's interesting because that makes total sense. But also I
Speaker 2: guess the male movie stars have kind of been allowed
Speaker 2: for a long time to hold onto that. We were
Speaker 2: used to seeing men, the iconic male movie stars in
Speaker 2: their fifties.
Speaker 1: And beyond, but that may be actually very true.
Speaker 2: Maybe now women are being afforded that longevity.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think I hope.
Speaker 2: It's not just because they look younger.
Speaker 1: No, but no, I think that's true.
Speaker 3: I think it's harder to make a new female movie
Speaker 3: star now.
Speaker 1: And I think, you.
Speaker 3: Know, in a risk a verse content universe, I can
Speaker 3: see why people that go, well, let's you know, let's
Speaker 3: go with the name. But I also think, you know,
Speaker 3: I am really interested in the generation of girls that
Speaker 3: I perhaps would have been intellectually you know, snobby about
Speaker 3: and brought into you know, not that I would have
Speaker 3: said it, but did I internalize that idea that there's
Speaker 3: popcorn actresses and then there's serious actresses.
Speaker 2: And it's what Demi Moore Sadden exactly.
Speaker 3: And I was very lucky, you know, very lucky to
Speaker 3: find myself in the kind of take her seriously box.
Speaker 3: And I think that, you know, it was just by
Speaker 3: the fault of default of me not being as ngenw
Speaker 3: fucker ball.
Speaker 1: The whole young thing.
Speaker 3: And I probably kind of looked, you know, with some
Speaker 3: envy at the opportunities, repeated opportunities, you know, those female
Speaker 3: actors were given, and felt that was unfair, you know,
Speaker 3: especially when they turn up in a big movie that
Speaker 3: you know, I didn't think they were up for. And
Speaker 3: I kind of, you know, I'm a bit ashamed of
Speaker 3: myself for kind of buying into that, and I think
Speaker 3: it's I mean, Demi. I loved her, like from the
Speaker 3: moment I saw her, she to me had she was authentic,
Speaker 3: and she was raw and she was sexy, and I
Speaker 3: kind of understood that you could feel the kind of
Speaker 3: wounds in her and it was such a kind of
Speaker 3: shame that she got, you know, that she peeked at
Speaker 3: the I think the kind of most misogynistic brat pack
Speaker 3: moment and she just mocked and mocked. Yeah, and everyone thinks,
Speaker 3: you know, brat pack. I was worse in the fifties,
Speaker 3: but I grew up watching movies from the thirties, forties
Speaker 3: and fifties because the female roles were better, more interesting,
Speaker 3: more complicated.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It was the eighties movies that sucks. Yeh like really sucked.
Speaker 3: You know, the absolute tweep gets the hot girl and
Speaker 3: just impossible plots where you know, it was basically, you know,
Speaker 3: felt like nerdy in Cells ended up with the keys
Speaker 3: to the cool Kids camp through the you know, through
Speaker 3: their clever camera and just created a bullshit version.
Speaker 1: Of the universe with a triumph and.
Speaker 3: It was just rubbish's and they don't age well like
Speaker 3: those films do not age well back to the future side.
Speaker 2: Perhaps, I mean, I feel it's I mean very very
Speaker 2: briefly touched on this. We might go back to it later,
Speaker 2: but it's hard to feel optimistic about that many things
Speaker 2: at the moment culturally. But maybe that's one of them,
Speaker 2: Like maybe the fact that we are hearing more female
Speaker 2: stories that have a lot more and I know that,
Speaker 2: I know it's still female stories of a certain type
Speaker 2: in a way, but we are hearing more stories of
Speaker 2: women who are over the allegedly fuckable age. We are
Speaker 2: hearing more stories about different kinds. That's got to be
Speaker 2: something to be happy about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think I think it's also that, you know,
Speaker 3: I watched Love Actually Again recently firm how weird that
Speaker 3: film is.
Speaker 2: You know, she did not my fifteen year old daughter
Speaker 2: did not get that film.
Speaker 3: Well, not only do they not get it, they can
Speaker 3: actively unpick every misogyny. And somebody described it the profound
Speaker 3: lack of interiority that women were afforded in British and
Speaker 3: American cinema for a long time. And look, you know,
Speaker 3: and he was so charming, you know, that filmmaker. It
Speaker 3: was easy not to see it. But if you watch
Speaker 3: any of his films. So the women are just props
Speaker 3: for the men to learn how to be human on
Speaker 3: and even then probably discard or fail to understand there
Speaker 3: or be interested in their interiority. And I love in
Speaker 3: terms of content, young women know when that interiority exists
Speaker 3: and makes sense to them. I did a show called
Speaker 3: The Wilds, and it was profoundly because of this aspect.
Speaker 3: I had just never seen that young woman's coming of
Speaker 3: age done in such an unsexualized, complicated, messy way. You know,
Speaker 3: they do watch tiktoks where girls are authentically performative, maybe
Speaker 3: maybe performatively maybe, but performatively authentically talking about the icky,
Speaker 3: sticky feelings that are uncomfortable and weird. And Taylor's made
Speaker 3: it okay to name the ick feeling that, you know.
Speaker 1: I think our generation was so ashamed of.
Speaker 3: So I think that generation coming into menopause will not
Speaker 3: be as enraged as we are.
Speaker 2: That's really interesting. I really don't not have as much
Speaker 2: to be enraged.
Speaker 1: I don't think so.
Speaker 3: I think we sucked up a lot, and from me personally,
Speaker 3: it wasn't even about sucking it up. It was not
Speaker 3: having names for things. And suddenly the universe started naming
Speaker 3: these ikey nasty states that I felt like I did
Speaker 3: have a right to ask for usha and suddenly, you know,
Speaker 3: I had this fourth wave feminist language and a lot
Speaker 3: of it.
Speaker 2: It's so true. It's funny. In one of the earlier episodes,
Speaker 2: I often say, like, is there the idea of perimenopausal rage?
Speaker 2: Isn't it just a sane response to having lived as
Speaker 2: a woman in the world for so long when you
Speaker 2: are a gen X woman and having to put up
Speaker 2: with all this is like you're suddenly kind of like,
Speaker 2: hold on, I don't have to play by those yes anyway.
Speaker 3: I completely agree with that that and I think it's
Speaker 3: the last burst of testosterone to remake your life. If
Speaker 3: you don't like what it looks like, if you don't
Speaker 3: like the job you're in, you know, you're up the
Speaker 3: corporate ladder, you don't like the husband, the country, anything,
Speaker 3: you go. This is the last energy you will have
Speaker 3: in a fierce way to rebuild your life if you
Speaker 3: take that choice.
Speaker 2: That is so true. And why when you look around
Speaker 2: you see mid women verticoras are doing that. They are
Speaker 2: going and doing that PhD they wanted to do. They
Speaker 2: are training as a yoga teacher there. Whatever they're doing,
Speaker 2: they're leaving their marriages whatever. After the break, Rachel and
Speaker 2: I talk about her new project, Madam, which is all
Speaker 2: about sex and desire and freedom and you know, the
Speaker 2: good stuff. Stay with us, Rachel, I want to talk
Speaker 2: to you about Madam, your new series. And I actually
Speaker 2: had the chance to interview Antonia Murphy recently, who wrote
Speaker 2: the book that the series is based.
Speaker 3: On good You can actually tell me I've forgotten some
Speaker 3: aspects so that it's true and what is not.
Speaker 1: Yes, I don't want to get sued for Deafa.
Speaker 2: Ma, don't worry about that. A fair bit of the
Speaker 2: setup about the husband isn't strict.
Speaker 1: Yeah, true.
Speaker 2: But the thing that is certainly true, and that from
Speaker 2: the parts of Madam I've seen seem absolutely spot on,
Speaker 2: is that she is what she wanted to create with
Speaker 2: that ethical brothel and this kind of revolutionary idea. Really
Speaker 2: because she, as I know, you know, she found herself
Speaker 2: in New Zealand as an American woman with a profoundly
Speaker 2: disabled son, questioning her next stage. And in New Zealand
Speaker 2: sex works legal and brothels legal and did criminalize, yes,
Speaker 2: And so she said that's very unusual, but that didn't
Speaker 2: necessarily mean that they were ethical. So she set out
Speaker 2: to set as you know, I'm telling you all the stories,
Speaker 2: you know, but the listener might.
Speaker 1: Tell your listeners.
Speaker 2: And she's saying and the main thing, the main thing
Speaker 2: for the women who work there, and she was living
Speaker 2: in a small town, which I also find fascinating she's
Speaker 2: living in a small town, is that everything consent was
Speaker 2: at the center of everything they do. So the women
Speaker 2: were in control of their schedules and in control of
Speaker 2: who they saw and who they didn't see and all
Speaker 2: of those things. It's fascinating. It's a wonderful story of
Speaker 2: just stripping back a lot of talking before about how
Speaker 2: gen X women often have been very like, we're still
Speaker 2: shamey about stuff, and we're not sure. I think that
Speaker 2: maybe we thought we were really bold and out there
Speaker 2: and brave about sex and sexuality, but actually we're still
Speaker 2: quite icky about talking about it in this way. So
Speaker 2: it's a really interesting conversation. What drew you to the part?
Speaker 2: I mean, I know it's not her that you're playing,
Speaker 2: but the version of Antonia that was in.
Speaker 3: Well, every role I get offered, I run through the
Speaker 3: lens of how far, how long, how much?
Speaker 1: And then how good is you know, a lot chirry
Speaker 1: on the cake.
Speaker 2: So you're always developing projects too, right, so obviously total control.
Speaker 2: As we discussed, yes, your baby, well part of your baby.
Speaker 3: I know this was more just you know, to earn money,
Speaker 3: so I have to leave my family, see a balancing
Speaker 3: So how far away is it? How long will I
Speaker 3: be away for? And am I making enough money to
Speaker 3: fly myself back every weekend? Sometimes just sometimes I went
Speaker 3: back for a day and got a night flight back.
Speaker 3: So those things have to add up, and then it's
Speaker 3: like is it good? Because I don't really want to know.
Speaker 3: If I don't want to know, it's amazing, if I've
Speaker 3: already gone too far, you know, too long. I don't
Speaker 3: want the good thing to to make me feel, you know,
Speaker 3: torn really, you know, because it's quite black and white,
Speaker 3: and certainly was when the kids were, you know, the
Speaker 3: older two were still at school. I've been offered so
Speaker 3: many sex worker roles, so many madame roles, at least
Speaker 3: two British madame roles, I think one Australian and one American.
Speaker 3: A beautiful I was in a beautiful film by Honey
Speaker 3: of Kureesha called my son the Fanatic or I played
Speaker 3: a sex worker. I was groundbreaking British film and kind
Speaker 3: of predicted the rise of radical Islam in second generation
Speaker 3: Southeast Indian community. It was a very very tender, tender film.
Speaker 3: Everything I've read this is not tender. It's gretty, and
Speaker 3: it's dirty, and it's you know, and it's kind it's
Speaker 3: either like really you know, seriously exploring the exploitation well,
Speaker 3: kind of getting anyone off at home that wants to
Speaker 3: you know, it's it's hedging its bets and just kind
Speaker 3: of nasty. And I never you know, I was just like,
Speaker 3: oh god again, you know, if you got anything new
Speaker 3: to say about it.
Speaker 1: Yes, it's set in Victorian England.
Speaker 3: I'm like, it's still kind of grimy, gritty and kind
Speaker 3: of exploitative, and I'd have no content in the process historically.
Speaker 3: So when my agent kind of said, you know, it
Speaker 3: starts a brother and I'm like, I don't think I'm interested,
Speaker 3: and said, oh, it's you know, I said, so they
Speaker 3: always say ikey, and I just feel like they're so
Speaker 3: male gaze. Actually that's the thing. There's so male gays.
Speaker 3: And he said, oh no, no, this is sorry. It's a
Speaker 3: comedy and it's based on a real woman who's you know,
Speaker 3: written this manuscript. So he sent me the article and
Speaker 3: I said, oh, this, this is brilliant because I've just
Speaker 3: never seen a female gaze on.
Speaker 1: I mean, we grew up.
Speaker 3: With pretty baby like Brooke Shields is twelve taxi driver
Speaker 3: like you know, like talk about the pervy excuse of
Speaker 3: exploring a sex worker with the herd of gold whilst you.
Speaker 1: Know being twelve, like that is messed up stuff.
Speaker 3: So yes, comedy female and a queer show runner, made
Speaker 3: with consultation with women who work in the industry.
Speaker 1: And it's key we did, I say, it's they are funny.
Speaker 2: It's very funny.
Speaker 3: So yeah, that GOLLI heart but not heart in that
Speaker 3: like hooker with horror, madam with a heart.
Speaker 2: But when I interviewed ANNGONEA Wrod and I read her book,
Speaker 2: obviously is she was. She said that a lot of
Speaker 2: her most successful workers in that brothel were midlife women.
Speaker 2: She said that they a red flag for the women
Speaker 2: were always the guys who requested young was always one
Speaker 2: of their flags. And in the in her phone, they'd
Speaker 2: have all these little you know, nicknames for people. So
Speaker 2: it was you know, yes, really golden showers or whatever. Whatever.
Speaker 1: Don't wash Walter exactly, but she said that.
Speaker 2: The midlife women were often the most popular because they
Speaker 2: were nurturing, warm, experienced, efficient. You know, I'm very good
Speaker 2: at reading people, and I found that really interesting. It's
Speaker 2: like it's it's a really interesting concept and show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think, you know, one of one of
Speaker 3: the great things she says in the book, she said,
Speaker 3: you know, we don't sell sex. We treat loneliness, which is,
Speaker 3: you know, as we know, an epidemic. And you know,
Speaker 3: one of the sex workers I talked to a lot
Speaker 3: of her clients were mid to late seventies, were still married,
Speaker 3: had you know, the sexual aspect of the relationship. It
Speaker 3: ended a long time ago, much to their deep, deep sadness,
Speaker 3: and you know, they didn't want to leave their wives,
Speaker 3: but they really grieved this this part of you know,
Speaker 3: the relationship and their wife is kind of like I'm
Speaker 3: just I'm not I can't I'm over that bit, you know.
Speaker 3: And so I think those yeah, middle older, older women
Speaker 3: servicing you know, older men with that kind of tenderness
Speaker 3: and you know, just a woman to look in their
Speaker 3: eyes go oh, you're hot, you know, and they go, oh,
Speaker 3: really really my wife doesn't think so it's interesting tender.
Speaker 2: We talk about sex a fabit on the show, and
Speaker 2: it's all always very it's always very emotional because as
Speaker 2: I've heard you say about the show, and it's true,
Speaker 2: is that when women talk about sex, it's often with
Speaker 2: lots of humor. And it definitely is. But when when
Speaker 2: I have we talked to midlife when about sex, sometimes
Speaker 2: there is a lot of sadness about who you used
Speaker 2: to be compared to who you are and how you
Speaker 2: feel about it now, and it's it's such an interesting
Speaker 2: story like that. We that in a way we don't
Speaker 2: talk about because we think sex belongs to young people.
Speaker 1: You know. I think Nicole's ending that one no video
Speaker 1: to Time.
Speaker 2: With the Milk, I think so true.
Speaker 3: I literally ordered a chlorin milk, which is one of
Speaker 3: my favorite, like last drinks, you know, I ordered a
Speaker 3: glor and milk and the barm and poured it while
Speaker 3: looking at me.
Speaker 1: I'm like, why what what is that was here? It
Speaker 1: was weird. Anyway, A couple of nights later I saw
Speaker 1: that movie.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, I had no idea
Speaker 3: it really was kind of giving me the hmmm.
Speaker 2: It's one of the iconic scenes in Baby Girl Friends
Speaker 2: if you haven't seen, it involves a glass of milk.
Speaker 3: Don't order milk without thinking about the consequence.
Speaker 2: But speaking about high profile women, because I also want
Speaker 2: to talk to you a little bit about total control,
Speaker 2: which I know it has ended, right, it has ended,
Speaker 2: But what an unbelievable show.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 2: I was listening to you talk about it recently too,
Speaker 2: and you said that when you were creating co creating
Speaker 2: that you spoke to a lot of powerful women in
Speaker 2: politics in Australia off record, and you talked a lot
Speaker 2: about the price of service for those women. And I
Speaker 2: know that's part of what's exploring that is that women
Speaker 2: who step into almost any public arena, it seems, but
Speaker 2: certainly politics and leadership, they have to almost agree now
Speaker 2: to this level of abuse and scrutiny that would destroy
Speaker 2: most of.
Speaker 1: Us, right, yeah, yeah, i'd agree. I agree with that.
Speaker 3: And I still think they're the kind of first victims
Speaker 3: of factional wars because they are still more often than
Speaker 3: not played by ambitious men who are wanting to elbow
Speaker 3: out the week on the way to the ministerial shut
Speaker 3: the ministerial paypacket on the you know, on the way
Speaker 3: to the lodge, because they think they're a genius. And
Speaker 3: those are very bruising, because it is one thing to
Speaker 3: put yourself out, you know, in the world and be
Speaker 3: so viciously trolled, probably you know, half by troll farms
Speaker 3: in the algorithm now, but you know, to literally have
Speaker 3: your life threatened and that of your children. And I
Speaker 3: might have said that a few years ago. I knew,
Speaker 3: I knew we were kind of going to get to
Speaker 3: where we are now. I knew we would get to
Speaker 3: egging in the street. I knew we'd get to caravans.
Speaker 3: I knew like a politician will die I am sure
Speaker 3: in the next few years because they're not offered the
Speaker 3: kind of protection that can protect against kind of incited
Speaker 3: angry individuals who have believed are kind of very negative
Speaker 3: twenty four hour news cycle that's kind of telling us
Speaker 3: that these people are corrupt and the government is corrupt.
Speaker 3: So I think, well, you know, I think we're headed there,
Speaker 3: and then to find out your own people don't have
Speaker 3: you back. I think that is also the other thing
Speaker 3: that that particularly for women, I think it would be
Speaker 3: easy to deal with that outside staff.
Speaker 1: If you really really knew that your.
Speaker 3: Own party, your own people were not backgrounding, you cannot
Speaker 3: you know, just I mean, every woman in the Australia
Speaker 3: knows if some weird articles start appearing in the paper
Speaker 3: and she's in a ministerial position, there's probably some background
Speaker 3: happening because she's going to be shuffled out and to
Speaker 3: do that in the Australian media and you start saying
Speaker 3: people are bullies or they're this just weird things pop
Speaker 3: up and you go, okay, who's background?
Speaker 1: I mean, what's very gender?
Speaker 3: So I think that's the really Really, if you really
Speaker 3: could trust and believe that your own party and people
Speaker 3: had your back, because that's what parties were meant to be,
Speaker 3: I think you could deal. But I think it's just
Speaker 3: getting excruciatingly painful for women now.
Speaker 2: And it also seems that as that becomes almost the game,
Speaker 2: the trolling, the attention war, was all of that stuff,
Speaker 2: that the kind of people that politics are going to
Speaker 2: attract are the kind of people who can withstand it,
Speaker 2: which is possibly not the best kind of humans. Most
Speaker 2: of us are sensitive.
Speaker 3: I think there's a degree of that, And then I
Speaker 3: think there's the kind of scarring of trauma. Like I think,
Speaker 3: you know two responses to trauma is one you completely
Speaker 3: fall apart and don't recover, and the other is you
Speaker 3: scar up and you harden up and you get very
Speaker 3: you get much less flexible, much less able to listen.
Speaker 3: And I think that is the hardened up to and
Speaker 3: up scar up. You know, he's from the slings and
Speaker 3: arrows of outrageous fortune. So to your point again, you
Speaker 3: have people in the job who are less likely to
Speaker 3: be making friendships across the island and keep listening. I
Speaker 3: think that is getting it's getting really, it's getting hard.
Speaker 2: This to say. One of the things I think is
Speaker 2: kind of tricky about this stage of life too, is
Speaker 2: maintaining a level of optimism about what can change and
Speaker 2: what can happen. And you've always been a very engaged
Speaker 2: person in terms of public life and social justice. I
Speaker 2: mean social justice maybe sounds like the wrong term, but
Speaker 2: you know, social justice and politics, you understand it. Is
Speaker 2: there any bit of you that's optimistic.
Speaker 3: Well, I really do believe in that, you know, except
Speaker 3: you know, accept the things you can't change, and you
Speaker 3: know much you know, I'm quite quite different to the
Speaker 3: you know, twenty sixteen kind of shock that such a
Speaker 3: capable woman was you know, not elected and somebody so
Speaker 3: you know, bombastic and.
Speaker 1: Of his nature was preferred.
Speaker 3: That was a real shock, and that was probably really
Speaker 3: coming in with that perimenopause moment. I've definitely yeah, pulled
Speaker 3: in and I think we're this idea that yelling, yelling
Speaker 3: at each other and making a statement and making a
Speaker 3: stand is the answer.
Speaker 1: Like, I've got to figure out other ways.
Speaker 3: It isn't another voice yelling into the void of just
Speaker 3: an increasingly loud cacophony of angry yells. So I'm kind
Speaker 3: of shifting into what I can control. I have given
Speaker 3: up trying to turn my high Rangers blue. No matter
Speaker 3: what I put in them, what I'm in the soil,
Speaker 3: those high Rangers want to be pink.
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's I thought I could.
Speaker 3: I read every book how to believe, but in the end,
Speaker 3: I've my Hydrangers are pinky blue and they will never
Speaker 3: be blue. Maybe it is a thing, And I think
Speaker 3: just leaning into believing in the power of the personal.
Speaker 3: So I'm just so much more likely to kind of
Speaker 3: reach out and connect and have conversations in more kind
Speaker 3: of one on one which doesn't feel as effective, you know.
Speaker 3: But I think I was deluding myself that the big
Speaker 3: you know, the big protests or the big statements, I
Speaker 3: don't know what they add.
Speaker 1: They look good, they look like you care.
Speaker 3: I wasn't doing it to tell people, you know, so
Speaker 3: I could tell myself. I cared. I was very motivated.
Speaker 3: But there's definitely a recalibration.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it does, absolutely. And I think people who
Speaker 2: followed your career and maybe and I'm going to use
Speaker 2: words that I hate, but I bet they get attached
Speaker 2: to you all the time, and maybe you don't hate them.
Speaker 2: Fisty characters, feisty, bullshy, opinionated, all those kind of words.
Speaker 2: They might have thought that you've always been very certain
Speaker 2: of who you are and speaking your truth. When you
Speaker 2: look back at those at you at that beginning of
Speaker 2: your career and when the public spotlight did first land
Speaker 2: on you, do you think you were that or do
Speaker 2: you think you're much more yourself?
Speaker 3: Look, I look, I probably am a bit you know,
Speaker 3: I am a bit bolshy, and I don't like management
Speaker 3: very much, so that I probably got that reputation because
Speaker 3: I just don't like really being told what to do.
Speaker 1: No is not usually my first answer to.
Speaker 3: Just take a second, but a lot of that i'd
Speaker 3: see through kind of the neuro you know, I think.
Speaker 2: I also want to say I don't mean any of
Speaker 2: that in a negative way.
Speaker 1: Of course you don't.
Speaker 2: But also because I think that also women in particular,
Speaker 2: maybe as we get older, we all that's what we
Speaker 2: all want, is to be able to say what we
Speaker 2: want to say, not when we want, not you know,
Speaker 2: like to And if people think that maybe you've always
Speaker 2: been at that, is that how you see it?
Speaker 3: No, I I think it would have been quite amazing
Speaker 3: to kind of have a better language to say when
Speaker 3: I was scared, and I've never really been certain of
Speaker 3: stuff that's like truth Intellectually, I don't go for the
Speaker 3: easy answers, and I even if I do for a minute,
Speaker 3: I'm you know, a better a better answer comes along,
Speaker 3: and I'll jump to that. So I think sometimes, you know,
Speaker 3: my husband says, you know, why are using that tone?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, what tone?
Speaker 3: It goes that tone when you I'm like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: that's just my I've got fifty five thousand things to do,
Speaker 3: and it sounds like I've got resting bitch tone. That's
Speaker 3: what I just came up with really recently. I said,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, Annie, I've got resting bitch tone. But I
Speaker 3: wished I had been able to, you know, suck up
Speaker 3: to power better, you know, work the it work, the
Speaker 3: you know alpha girls a bit better. You know, I
Speaker 3: was just shit at all that. I just didn't get
Speaker 3: the MA That's all I say.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: I don't think I was necessarily any of these things.
Speaker 3: I think I was just a girl trying to figure
Speaker 3: it out without the manual.
Speaker 1: I'm like, why didn't I get a manual?
Speaker 2: Well, I think you managed to make incredible work with
Speaker 2: all that in mind. Thank you so much. It's been
Speaker 2: the best to talk to you.
Speaker 3: They're bears, and we didn't. I didn't get to your
Speaker 3: your I really want next time?
Speaker 1: And what is your favorite era? Those like what is
Speaker 1: your PA?
Speaker 2: I actually like this one?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't.
Speaker 2: I know, I don't know if you're supposed to say that,
Speaker 2: but I feel like I do have a much better
Speaker 2: handle on what I want to do with my time
Speaker 2: and what I don't. What makes me happy, I mean
Speaker 2: happy is you know, a broad term, but what makes
Speaker 2: me happy? And what doesn't. I'm like, I like this one.
Speaker 2: I just wish it came with without the like having
Speaker 2: lost my business and with that sort of midlife tilted
Speaker 2: head that everybody does to you, like, oh we're getting
Speaker 2: a bit old, aren't you. I'm like, you don't understand.
Speaker 1: This is great? Yeah, this is good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is good. So I like this one.
Speaker 3: I like going blind because I look in the mirror
Speaker 3: and I'm just like.
Speaker 1: I reckon, I'm really.
Speaker 3: Hot, and I very question I'll have my like three
Speaker 3: three glasses on and you know, I go in to
Speaker 3: get going to get pull a hair out that shouldn't be.
Speaker 1: Then I'm like, what.
Speaker 3: Most of the time I passed myself, you know, in
Speaker 3: a very fuzzy vision.
Speaker 2: I go look and good Bay, I totally hear you.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Rachel. Okay, I'm not going to
Speaker 2: forget Rachel's words easily. I have literally written down you
Speaker 2: would you did you have to as the verboten words
Speaker 2: of our next date night dinner. But if you love this,
Speaker 2: I want you to scroll back in the midfeed and
Speaker 2: listen to my conversation with Kylie Gillies about finding joy
Speaker 2: in a moment of big shift and also my conversation
Speaker 2: with Christine r Nu, who has the same absolutely straightforward,
Speaker 2: honest energy as Rachel when talking about work and kids
Speaker 2: and life.
Speaker 1: Massive.
Speaker 2: They're as always to our Mid team Executive producer Nama Brown,
Speaker 2: Senior producer Grace Rure, Producer Charlie Blackman, and we've had
Speaker 2: audio production from Jacob Brown. Thank you all so much.
Speaker 2: And before I leave, I've got to tell you something
Speaker 2: about an exciting holiday that you could win.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I am about to go on a little cruise with
Speaker 2: Princess Cruises with my best friend for her fiftieth birthday,
Speaker 2: and here at mid we are giving away a luxurious
Speaker 2: seven night cruise also with Princess for two value to
Speaker 2: over three thousand dollars. You can enjoy the benefits of
Speaker 2: Princess plus Fair with drinks and Wi Fi included as
Speaker 2: you sail, and you can visit Port Arthur, Hobart and
Speaker 2: do some scenic cruising through the Frasina Peninsula of Tasmania,
Speaker 2: absolutely stunning. All you have to do to enter this
Speaker 2: giveaway is to be a subscriber to Mamma Mia and
Speaker 2: for a limited time only, you can use the code
Speaker 2: mid Cruise, So mid Cruise for twenty two percent off
Speaker 2: your yearly subscription. And if you're already a subscriber, you've
Speaker 2: already entered into this and all subscriber giveaways done simple.
Speaker 2: The prize draw is on the fourth of March. Tease
Speaker 2: and sees apply. And if you haven't had enough of
Speaker 2: me yet, follow me on Instagram or sign up for
Speaker 2: my newsletter, or listen to me and my great friends
Speaker 2: Mia Friedman and Jesse Stevens talk a million times a
Speaker 2: week on Mama Mia out Loud. See you next week.
Speaker 2: Links to all the good stuff in the show notes.