Speaker 1: Welcome to River Cafe Table four, a production of iHeartRadio
Speaker 1: and Adami Studios.
Speaker 2: When Maggie john Noll enters a river cafe, I stop
Speaker 2: whatever I'm doing, even if mid service a rare admission
Speaker 2: from a chef. But then Maggie is a rare person
Speaker 2: for whom the world should stop. She's a brilliant actor,
Speaker 2: a strong director, and a beautiful writer. She is a
Speaker 2: truly passionate woman, and I am truly passionate about her.
Speaker 3: That's so beautiful, That's true.
Speaker 2: A little love letter from Ruthie Rogers. We are going
Speaker 2: to read the recipe that you chose for a taggy
Speaker 2: telly with figs.
Speaker 4: Three hundred and fifty grams egg tagliatel eight black figs
Speaker 4: cut into eighths, two dried chilis, crumbled, two lemons, parmesan
Speaker 4: grated extra virgin olive oil one hundred millilters double cream.
Speaker 4: Grate the lemon peel of both lemons and squeeze the
Speaker 4: juice of one. Heat a frying pan large enough for
Speaker 4: the figs in one layer. Add olive oil, and when hot,
Speaker 4: place the figs in the pan, turning them immediately to caramelize.
Speaker 4: Season and add the dried chili. Stir the lemon, zest
Speaker 4: and juice into the cream and mix with the figs.
Speaker 4: Cook the pasta and add to the sauce. Serve with parmesan.
Speaker 2: Thank you. It would be nice to talk about the
Speaker 2: lost water and food accommodation of movie and food work
Speaker 2: in food Greece and Italy and figs and pasta. So
Speaker 2: how was it filming in Greece? Was it last summer before.
Speaker 3: The Last Daughter?
Speaker 4: It was this summer before last summer, so it was
Speaker 4: August September October, although we only shot for a month
Speaker 4: of that time of twenty twenty.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so two summers ago.
Speaker 2: And were there fixed?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there were figs your name later. It's very provocative.
Speaker 3: You're thinking about the Yates.
Speaker 2: I bet you know it by heart in Italia touto
Speaker 2: di corpo.
Speaker 3: There's a few interesting food things in The Last Daughter.
Speaker 2: The rotten fruit in the very beginning. Yeah, picked up
Speaker 2: the boat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I think like hunger as an idea, especially
Speaker 4: for women.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 4: Often we're told that our appetites are too big, you know,
Speaker 4: for what it is we want, what it is we need,
Speaker 4: even the amount of rage, the amount of confusion, the
Speaker 4: amount of need, the amount of love, the amount of desire,
Speaker 4: Like it's too much.
Speaker 3: What were your daughters like when they were little? Were
Speaker 3: they like this willful little creature. I don't mistake my
Speaker 3: command them much. Actually, I don't know. You can't forget
Speaker 3: anything about your own children. I was thinking about food
Speaker 3: in some ways, in terms.
Speaker 4: Of desire and hunger versus deprivation. So like even that
Speaker 4: scene with Callie, the pregnant sister in law when she
Speaker 4: offers her the cake and she who eats cake? And
Speaker 4: who doesn't? From one woman's hands to another, and Olivia
Speaker 4: takes a bite, and at least the way she plays
Speaker 4: and that take, I feel like it actually was delicious
Speaker 4: and you know, really something she was sort of trying
Speaker 4: not to eat but wanted to eat. And what we
Speaker 4: really remember food wise in my family. And Olivia Coleman too,
Speaker 4: I mean she was a part of this. Was like
Speaker 4: this kind of obsession we had with spinach pie, you
Speaker 4: know the Greek spinach pre that's a cheese.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I found that.
Speaker 4: I needed fat, like I needed like my brain needed
Speaker 4: fat and I could eat four.
Speaker 3: No, four was too many. That's what we decided.
Speaker 4: Three spinach pies throughout the day was the right number
Speaker 4: and four was too many.
Speaker 2: It was that different from other films you've worked on.
Speaker 2: Do you think being director, you needed a different kind
Speaker 2: of way of eating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I did.
Speaker 4: I needed a different It's a totally different kind of
Speaker 4: I was constantly moving and thinking. For example, it's so
Speaker 4: different than editing. When I was editing, I was editing
Speaker 4: in the middle of the pandemic in New York in
Speaker 4: the winter, just me and my editor. We needed like nourishing.
Speaker 4: I bought him lunch every day and we had like
Speaker 4: steak sandwiches and pasta, and I don't know, I needed
Speaker 4: something more streamlined when I was shooting, like just straight
Speaker 4: like black coffee and spinach pies, spinach push. I was
Speaker 4: thinking about the last time I saw you actually when
Speaker 4: what that was. I don't even know if you knew
Speaker 4: really what that dinner was. But I invited the people
Speaker 4: who not the people who had literally paid for the movie,
Speaker 4: but the people who had organized all of that, the
Speaker 4: people who had gotten it sold to European distributors, the
Speaker 4: people who had you know, made the deal with Netflix,
Speaker 4: the people who had connected did me with our financiers,
Speaker 4: the people who were like doing the sort of.
Speaker 3: Business side of it.
Speaker 4: Who always take me to dinner, and they had just
Speaker 4: done something like really brilliantly in what they do, and
Speaker 4: I really wanted to take them to dinner, and I
Speaker 4: wanted to take them to like the most beautiful, bountiful
Speaker 4: dinner with the best wine and all the desserts.
Speaker 3: And I in fact got to.
Speaker 4: Do what I didn't even realize I wanted to do,
Speaker 4: but like I ordered for everybody because I remember this,
Speaker 4: I remember, yeah, but I thought it gave me so
Speaker 4: much pleasure to offer to them, I mean like a
Speaker 4: real thank you, you know, like in a special place.
Speaker 4: And then I remember like we weren't sure. We're like, oh,
Speaker 4: is this enough pasta? And I was like, no, no,
Speaker 4: no it's not. Let's get another two pasta, you know,
Speaker 4: like that so that nobody nobody felt I mean, you
Speaker 4: don't want also to too much that you don't care anymore, but.
Speaker 3: That everyone felt that they could eat their fill.
Speaker 2: I remember that night that you were there, and I
Speaker 2: remember the feeling of it that you were you know,
Speaker 2: you you were so happy and you were so wanting to.
Speaker 4: Give I kept texting you and saying, oh, could one
Speaker 4: more person come.
Speaker 3: Oh, could just one more person come? Could one more
Speaker 3: person come?
Speaker 4: And I felt good, I felt really bad because you
Speaker 4: were like fitting us into the world of your restaurant.
Speaker 4: Then at the same time, everyone was like, sort of
Speaker 4: more people wanted to join, you know, could I you know,
Speaker 4: and don't you always kind of want to say yes, right,
Speaker 4: like like of course you can bring your boyfriend. Of
Speaker 4: course I didn't realize to invite her, and of course
Speaker 4: she should be invited, and you know, so you're just
Speaker 4: kind of opening your arms more and more, and this
Speaker 4: is interesting.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 3: It really was a special night.
Speaker 4: And one of the thing I just want to say
Speaker 4: about it is, you know, in terms of Hunger and
Speaker 4: my film, and you know, even like we were talking
Speaker 4: about deprivation versus being satisfied, I think I felt something
Speaker 4: interesting about that night too, because of course we were
Speaker 4: there to do press for The Lost Daughter. We all
Speaker 4: had to wake up at like six o'clock in the
Speaker 4: morning the next day and go do press all day
Speaker 4: and then go to the opening night. And we had
Speaker 4: all eaten all this food, drank tons of wine and
Speaker 4: champagne and chocolate cake. And I was thinking the next
Speaker 4: day about like consequences what's worth it and what isn't
Speaker 4: you know? And I was like, this feeling I have
Speaker 4: today is totally worth it. I'm not blindly having this
Speaker 4: dinner and drinking wine and you know, eating all this
Speaker 4: delicious food. I understand that I will sacrifice something the
Speaker 4: next day. If I'd gone to sleep at nine and
Speaker 4: had green juice or something, I would feel different. But
Speaker 4: what it gives me in exchange, I felt was was
Speaker 4: worth it.
Speaker 2: I remember exactly where you were sitting. You were outside
Speaker 2: and you were and I came in to see you.
Speaker 2: I always say again, like you, I try and say
Speaker 2: yes as much as well. I just I think I
Speaker 2: say it to my grandchildren. I say it to I
Speaker 2: say it to the way it's just saying, you know,
Speaker 2: it makes life actually much nicer and much happier. So
Speaker 2: going back, what was it like growing up in your
Speaker 2: household in the chillinal household? And food? Did your mother cook?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Both of my parents cooked and cooked pretty well. I
Speaker 4: think you know that my brother is a you know, like.
Speaker 3: A really like a like a gifted cook. You know.
Speaker 4: I don't think my parents are gifted cooks, but they
Speaker 4: know what they're doing and they care about food. And
Speaker 4: they enjoy food, and I think that's definitely something that
Speaker 4: can be handed down. Like my mom always jokes that
Speaker 4: I remember things that were happening in places that I
Speaker 4: went by what I was wearing, and she remembers by
Speaker 4: what she was eating. But I also remember by what
Speaker 4: I was eating, and I plan my days around.
Speaker 3: Around food, you know, all the time.
Speaker 4: I think, like growing up, you know, my dad would
Speaker 4: make us a really nice breakfast in the morning, and
Speaker 4: we still do that for our kids, Like they always
Speaker 4: have breakfast and something nice, and I like to. You know,
Speaker 4: the thing is like even just cutting up an orange
Speaker 4: nicely and putting it on a cutting board and putting
Speaker 4: it in the middle of the table at breakfast along
Speaker 4: with whatever else you're making, all of a sudden makes
Speaker 4: it a nice meal, or you know, putting having a
Speaker 4: nice sort of butter bell and having some nice gams
Speaker 4: around it. You know, even if you're doing the simplest thing,
Speaker 4: I do that, Like, actually, I mean, I mess up
Speaker 4: all sorts of things, but I do really take care
Speaker 4: of food.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: When I've traveled to other countries, as I'm sure you have,
Speaker 2: I always think that the way a person cuts a
Speaker 2: piece of bread. The way they slice of bread tells
Speaker 2: you something about the culture. And Richard and I went
Speaker 2: to Syria, and you know, it's done by the museums,
Speaker 2: and I was moved by the architecture. And then you
Speaker 2: would go into a small little place and you'd see
Speaker 2: the way, as you say, they would cut a piece
Speaker 2: of bread, or they would put a piece of cheese,
Speaker 2: or they would serve it in a bowl, and it
Speaker 2: meant something. You know, if you do that for your
Speaker 2: children and.
Speaker 4: Those little things that you know, would just make a difference.
Speaker 4: I believe in that, and I so in my house,
Speaker 4: we always had breakfast.
Speaker 2: What do you have, Maggie? What do you have for
Speaker 2: breaks in our house? Now? I have a breakfast? Was
Speaker 2: Gloria there? She could tell us.
Speaker 3: Gloria's right here, Yeah, she can hear you. You want
Speaker 3: to tell her a little bit about breakfast at our house?
Speaker 3: What do we have? Okay, Gloria is gonna Gloria, who
Speaker 3: is my.
Speaker 4: Daughter who's nine, who's home from school with a cold today,
Speaker 4: is gonna keep me honest?
Speaker 3: What do we have for breakfast? You're come over close
Speaker 3: to the microphone.
Speaker 5: Like we have like eggs and we have toast and
Speaker 5: oranges m hm. And sometimes my mom puts out a
Speaker 5: little bit of juice like Dorsley apple.
Speaker 4: Juice, and do we have We also usually have tea,
Speaker 4: and sometimes we have cool things like sometimes.
Speaker 3: We have like egg and a hole.
Speaker 2: What's up right?
Speaker 3: What's egg and a hole?
Speaker 5: It's like it's a piece of bread with the inside
Speaker 5: cut out and instead there's a bit of the middle
Speaker 5: of the eggs inside of it, and the outside there's
Speaker 5: also an egg. So it's kind of.
Speaker 3: Just like an egg.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: You take something that makes like a perfect circle, like
Speaker 4: a little cup, and you push out a perfect circle,
Speaker 4: and then we toast that little circle in the pan
Speaker 4: too with some butter, and you crack the egg in
Speaker 4: the circle so that it stays in the circle, and.
Speaker 2: You have like a little egg and a hole coming
Speaker 2: for breakfast? This household? Did you grow up with a
Speaker 2: household where where you had breakfast every day, where you
Speaker 2: sat around the table with your parents and had breakfast?
Speaker 2: Is something that you were brought up with that you
Speaker 2: want to give to your children because your parents give
Speaker 2: it to you.
Speaker 4: Well, my mom, like me, likes to sleep late, so
Speaker 4: she would like stay in bed and my dad would
Speaker 4: make her a coffee, which just seems like such a
Speaker 4: luxury to me. It's so nice. And then my dad
Speaker 4: really made breakfast for us. My mom, I would say, more,
Speaker 4: made dinner. My dad too, both of them cooked.
Speaker 2: Did you have dinner?
Speaker 3: Yeah, always almost all.
Speaker 2: And you did. Jake said that you did when your
Speaker 2: parents entertained. He described sitting on the stairs and listening
Speaker 2: from above. And so when you left home, did you
Speaker 2: cook for yourself?
Speaker 4: I was not taught, not really taught how to cook.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's funny. I remember going to a dinner
Speaker 4: party at somebody's house when I was in my early twenties,
Speaker 4: and this woman was making a tomato sauce like Apasta sauce,
Speaker 4: and she put raw onions in at the end, and.
Speaker 3: I was like shocked. You know, I knew, I knew.
Speaker 4: I mean I always knew, like enough to know not
Speaker 4: to do that, and I could always cook a little.
Speaker 3: But I I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, Maybe I.
Speaker 4: Always sort of basically had the basics just from growing
Speaker 4: up around people who cooked. When I first left home
Speaker 4: and I went to college, I you know, ate Chinese
Speaker 4: food at four o'clock in the morning and bagels with
Speaker 4: butter and just whatever I wanted, which I think is
Speaker 4: not uncommon probably, And then when did I start to cook,
Speaker 4: I don't know, kind of snuck up on me. It
Speaker 4: definitely had to do with mothering. I think that I
Speaker 4: really wanted to feed my kids well. I always want
Speaker 4: to feed my kids well. And I don't mean like
Speaker 4: super super healthy. I don't actually think about it like that.
Speaker 4: I just want them to feel nourished and satisfied and
Speaker 4: excited about food.
Speaker 2: So it is food always when you're working. Does it
Speaker 2: depend on what you're working on?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: I remember actually when I did Three Sisters with Peter
Speaker 4: with my husband, I would drink lots of coffee. I
Speaker 4: remember a friend of mine who was in the play
Speaker 4: with us, was like, I can't believe how much coffee
Speaker 4: you drink, you know, Like I would have one that
Speaker 4: was like a latte, one that was just a regular
Speaker 4: drip coffee, and one that was an espresso, and I'd
Speaker 4: kind of sip from different ones at different times in
Speaker 4: the performance. And I found also I was in a corset,
Speaker 4: so you can't eat.
Speaker 3: A lot, like you'll burp. It's weird, but I and
Speaker 3: also you.
Speaker 4: Need that kind of streamline feeling, but you know, what
Speaker 4: I found worked really well and would sustain me for
Speaker 4: long enough through a whole long check off play was
Speaker 4: sober noodles their buckwheat and there's a kind of I
Speaker 4: would go to this place, this really good place in
Speaker 4: the East Village and get sober noodles with shrimp tempura
Speaker 4: and the seaweed salad, and it was just exactly perfect.
Speaker 4: If I had that early enough, that would sustain me
Speaker 4: through the play. Again, it was nourishing, it had some protein,
Speaker 4: it also had carbs and something that filled me. And
Speaker 4: then I'm of course on stage, I'm always hungry afterward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, afterwards going out to eat afterwards. When you decide
Speaker 2: to do a film, or when you decide to do play,
Speaker 2: or when you are wanting to work with another actor,
Speaker 2: actress or director, does going to a restaurant with them
Speaker 2: reveal something about them? Do you thinks?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't think of it as consciously as that.
Speaker 4: I'm not trying to pull something out of them. It's
Speaker 4: more I feel comfortable in that space, let me order
Speaker 4: beautiful things for us, and you know, yeah, I really
Speaker 4: like to share a meal with anybody who I'm who
Speaker 4: I'm interacting with. But certainly with work, yes, and I
Speaker 4: only want to go really good places. Thinking about this
Speaker 4: just occurs to me because I had like a couple
Speaker 4: of really good meals with David Simon when I was
Speaker 4: working on The Deuce at Via Kurota.
Speaker 3: But when we were scouting.
Speaker 4: Basically I shadowed a director on the Deuce, meaning I,
Speaker 4: you know, when I wasn't acting, there was one director
Speaker 4: who I just spent all the time with. I we
Speaker 4: did location scouting and costume fittings and you know, I
Speaker 4: sat with her at her at her chair, and I
Speaker 4: hated location scouting when it wasn't my film. When it
Speaker 4: was my film, I mean, I could have done it
Speaker 4: all day, but I was super bored on the Deuce.
Speaker 4: I was like, oh my god, when is this day
Speaker 4: gonna be over? And like that high school looks fine,
Speaker 4: you know. But we were in I don't know where
Speaker 4: we were, like Long Island or something, and we ended
Speaker 4: up stopping at this pretty great Italian like like Italian
Speaker 4: American like Long Island like type of place like Red
Speaker 4: Sauce like you know, and it was really.
Speaker 3: Pretty great and it just totally lifted me.
Speaker 4: We're scouting in little Italy in this cafe that was
Speaker 4: known for its like almond cookies, almond cookies that are
Speaker 4: kind of chewy in the middle.
Speaker 2: Like amaretta.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, pine nut, pine nut them, they're like pin
Speaker 4: yeah yeah, and and and they were so good and
Speaker 4: they just gave us an espresso and like a box
Speaker 4: of these cookies.
Speaker 3: And again I was like okay, I like scouting again.
Speaker 2: Good matters. And it's also a celebration. Were you married
Speaker 2: in Italy? Did you tell me once that you were
Speaker 2: married in Italy?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in Pulia.
Speaker 4: And the food was incredible and it's the same kind
Speaker 4: of food we're talking about, like not fussy, not a
Speaker 4: big deal, warm, plentiful.
Speaker 2: Pullia is an incredible region of Italy. It's it is
Speaker 2: totally unique in that barren landscape with the time of year.
Speaker 4: Was it It was May second, so it was in fact,
Speaker 4: we went back in August one year and we were like.
Speaker 3: This is a completely different place. Hot and like totally packed.
Speaker 4: But in May it was poppies everywhere and olive trees
Speaker 4: and really quiet.
Speaker 3: It was great.
Speaker 2: The one cush and I ask everyone is if food
Speaker 2: is love, Food is alleviating hunger, food is giving support.
Speaker 2: It is also a comfort is there a comfort food
Speaker 2: that you would go for?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean for me, it's pasta. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 4: any pasta. It's not acidic pasta, Like it's not tomato pasta.
Speaker 4: Jake loves that, right, you know, he's always making it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, for me, it's like a simple, basic.
Speaker 3: Pasta. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I can have variation, of course, but we have one
Speaker 4: that we make with like a little bit of anchovy
Speaker 4: that you can barely taste and you know, in my
Speaker 4: house and the cooking water and parmesan and you know.
Speaker 3: Just really really simple. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I love pasta. I think it's a good go too
Speaker 2: for comfort. It is. It is very comforting, and talking
Speaker 2: to you is comforting and seeing you and celebrating your
Speaker 2: movie and try and come for the Baftis.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going to try and come, and if not,
Speaker 4: I'm going to get to London and see all my
Speaker 4: friends and you and eat at your restaurant.
Speaker 3: I'm dying to come back. I really am really miss it.
Speaker 2: Just get on that plane and come bye bye man,
Speaker 2: nice Hi, I love you.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: To visit the online shop of the River Cafe, go
Speaker 2: to shop Therivercafe dot co dot uk.
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