Speaker 1: The amount of people that have said to me, where
Speaker 1: do you keep your skill?
Speaker 2: Because they were convinced that or wanted to be convinced
Speaker 2: that I had wanted.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've never had that. But people think I went
Speaker 3: to Harvard because Skyler, the character I played in Goodle
Speaker 3: he went to Harvard. Most people they're like, what was
Speaker 3: Harvard by? It was amazing? Hello, I'm mini driver. I've
Speaker 3: always loved Proust's questionnaire. It was originally in nineteenth century
Speaker 3: parlor game where players would ask each other thirty five
Speaker 3: questions aimed at revealing the other player's true nature. In
Speaker 3: asking different people the same set of questions, you can
Speaker 3: make observations about which truths appear to be universal. And
Speaker 3: it made me wonder, what if these questions were just
Speaker 3: a jumping off point, what greater depths would be revealed
Speaker 3: if I asked these questions as conversation starters. So I
Speaker 3: adapted Pru's questionnaire and I wrote my own seven questions
Speaker 3: that I personally think are pertinent to a person's story.
Speaker 3: They are when and where were you happiest? What is
Speaker 3: the quality you like least about yourself? What relationship, real
Speaker 3: or fictionalized, defines love? For you, What question would you
Speaker 3: most like answered, What person, place, or experience has shaped
Speaker 3: you the most? What would be your last meal? And
Speaker 3: can you tell me something in your life that's grown
Speaker 3: out of a personal disaster? And I've gathered a group
Speaker 3: of really remarkable people, ones that I am honored and
Speaker 3: humbled to have had the chance to engage with. You
Speaker 3: may not hear their answers to all seven of these questions.
Speaker 3: We've whittled it down to which questions felt closest to
Speaker 3: their experience, or the most surprising, or created the most
Speaker 3: fertile ground to connect. My guest today is the comparable
Speaker 3: actor and author Richard E. Grant. I say incomparable because
Speaker 3: I have genuinely never met anyone in my life who
Speaker 3: is as curious, interested, fun, clever, positive and wise as Richard.
Speaker 3: He's the person you're most pleased to see when you
Speaker 3: walk into a room full of strangers or of friends.
Speaker 3: And it's quite confronting interviewing him because he follows up
Speaker 3: every question with one for you, and he won't stop
Speaker 3: until you've answered it. And it's not as a deflection,
Speaker 3: but it's because he's interested. I have three favorite movies,
Speaker 3: and Richard's first movie with them, and I is one
Speaker 3: of them. It is a film that is so perfectly
Speaker 3: and eccentricly British, and the wayward, giant, roaring character of
Speaker 3: with Noel, who Richard plays, is lodged forever and ever
Speaker 3: in my heart, like the Queen and the Clash and
Speaker 3: cucumber sandwiches. It's quite rare for actors to begin with
Speaker 3: a moment of pure incandescence and to then consistently expand
Speaker 3: beyond that in a unique and engaging way. I mean,
Speaker 3: I think, but to me, Richard has done that throughout
Speaker 3: his entire career. We talk about London and our loves,
Speaker 3: about Oscars and competitive creativity and about loss. As ever,
Speaker 3: it was a riveting and wonderful conversation. And if you
Speaker 3: haven't already read his book A Pocket Full of Happiness,
Speaker 3: I urge you to do so, because it is a
Speaker 3: truly beautifully written book. And you can watch him later
Speaker 3: this year in the movie's Death of a Unicorn and urrembug.
Speaker 3: Do you know this was the first year in twenty
Speaker 3: five years that I haven't gone to the Oscars or
Speaker 3: any of the Oscar parties and just stayed at home.
Speaker 3: I mean, it was very difficult to get from Malibu.
Speaker 3: Everything shot, the roads were all still shut. There was
Speaker 3: no possible way of doing it anyway, But it was
Speaker 3: It was so interesting to just observe and to see
Speaker 3: the pageant from a distance, because it really is a pageant.
Speaker 4: It's funny, so observing big thing from not being there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how did that make you feel about it?
Speaker 3: To actually realize that. I have always struggled with the
Speaker 3: idea of competitive creativity, the idea that you would be
Speaker 3: put into a position where you are are judging who
Speaker 3: is best Jeremy Strong or Kieran Culkin or Edward Norton.
Speaker 3: It's absurd when you break it down. And yet there's
Speaker 3: this delight and wonder and the speech of the person
Speaker 3: that does win, and the excitement, and there's there's something
Speaker 3: It felt like it felt sort of Roman, That's what
Speaker 3: it felt like. It felt like it was the Colosseum.
Speaker 3: It just it felt like it was proper entertainment, that
Speaker 3: you shouldn't really take any of it to heart at
Speaker 3: all and just have a big fun party, win lou Straw, whatever.
Speaker 3: And I think it was sort of seeing that and
Speaker 3: the celebration more than the competition.
Speaker 2: You know it's all competitions.
Speaker 4: Yeah, when they focused on each person's face awful momer making.
Speaker 2: But they you know before people are going to Louis.
Speaker 2: It's we watched because you don't.
Speaker 4: Get it livening My George and I watched the pil
Speaker 4: activity and she could not dare to look at any more.
Speaker 3: It was horrific. It's horrific.
Speaker 4: Well she was then, because any time I don't have
Speaker 4: been there six years ago was I can remember I
Speaker 4: was in the third row.
Speaker 2: Glen Clace was in the stunt blow in the middle
Speaker 2: of the stunt bowen in a bold dress.
Speaker 4: I remember an awfully pound train behind them, so she
Speaker 4: looked like human Oscar and Olivia Oemen was eighteen brows
Speaker 4: back in boone box and had done no publicity shooting
Speaker 4: Brown and every single plandis and you know, all the
Speaker 4: Vaga Solts everything.
Speaker 2: Were the Glen close for a sixth nomination.
Speaker 4: Gene on the Golden Globe, and I think the exact
Speaker 4: same thing happened to Ignore as well, saying it's it's
Speaker 4: absolutely brutal to anybody outside of Sherby's.
Speaker 2: It's like with people worrying about that, and they love it.
Speaker 3: They love seeing the faces of the gutted people, it's
Speaker 3: like it's like, that's right, you didn't win.
Speaker 2: I tell you what was so we are suing is
Speaker 2: that I knew in Cavali that I was six years
Speaker 2: ago that the other PHO nominee is because we all
Speaker 2: got to know each other, as you know that I
Speaker 2: got to know all the other guys almost.
Speaker 3: Of five months political campaign, and we all.
Speaker 4: Knew that Mahashel Ali was going to win because it
Speaker 4: was it was a given at that point. And like
Speaker 4: like qan Falcon this year, there's always one award where
Speaker 4: it's absolutely ye, you're not able to prepare the speech
Speaker 4: because you know, unless you dropped there and said, oh,
Speaker 4: you know, as a results of this pressing, I've been here.
Speaker 2: That's why I'm here. And as soon as.
Speaker 4: The nominees came up and any Pillar and the other
Speaker 4: two comedy partners in crime is sitting directly behind me
Speaker 4: chapping off the shoulder and loser welcome to the Losers Club,
Speaker 4: and they said ninety nine percent of the people that
Speaker 4: they go back.
Speaker 2: To, we're the majority. I said, there must have been
Speaker 2: some percentage of your brain which I thought, no, there's
Speaker 2: a chance on the worst. They said, you're lying, You're lying.
Speaker 2: I said, believe me. I knew, we knew it was
Speaker 2: a bottle, no chance. But you're talking about the Colosseum.
Speaker 4: Thing is that it is not always about as we know,
Speaker 4: it's not about the best. It's about they say deserves
Speaker 4: the most or who is the most popular at this
Speaker 4: point in time. And it's like the economy wanted to
Speaker 4: give it to Charon Copkin.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and they wanted to give it to Mikey Madison.
Speaker 3: It's true. It's a funny sort of tidal thing. Like
Speaker 3: it was really interesting just watching it, not being there
Speaker 3: and not kind of getting ready to go out to
Speaker 3: the parties and being in a state of sort of
Speaker 3: you know, fizz and excitement. It was just to genially
Speaker 3: watch it and to enjoy it and to listen. I
Speaker 3: remember when I was nominated when they called it because
Speaker 3: it was always the first category back in the day
Speaker 3: best Supporting Actress. And my dad just like he was
Speaker 3: holding my hand and he just leant over as they
Speaker 3: were reading out the nominies and he was like, you
Speaker 3: do know you're not going to win ant you I
Speaker 3: was like, hold off, what I mean? Yes, But also maybe,
Speaker 3: and he was like, I'm not this. I mean, it
Speaker 3: was so funny and great to have him there, and
Speaker 3: I was chuckling at him doing that in that moment.
Speaker 3: It was like having someone pinching your finger when you're
Speaker 3: getting an injection that you're busy looking at that thing
Speaker 3: and thinking that's funny. Well, the hard thing's happenings.
Speaker 4: When she came with me, Joan couldn't face good the
Speaker 4: last minute. My daughter said, whatever happens. Do you know
Speaker 4: that you're one of five actors on the planet this
Speaker 4: moment because see dissmination. They can never take that away
Speaker 4: from me for evermore until you're boxed up and blount.
Speaker 4: It shall be am.
Speaker 3: It's true.
Speaker 2: And I know that you had this experience.
Speaker 1: But the amount of people that have said to me,
Speaker 1: where do you keep your skill?
Speaker 2: Because they were convinced that or wanted to be convinced
Speaker 2: that I had want Yeah, you know, after a while,
Speaker 2: I just you know, civilians would say, you know, where
Speaker 2: do you keep it? I'd say, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3: No, I've never had that. But people think I went
Speaker 3: to Harvard because Skuyler, the character I played in Pople
Speaker 3: he went to Harvard. Most people They're like they were like,
Speaker 3: what was Horvord?
Speaker 4: Like, well, that was great, you know, I'm in mensa.
Speaker 3: It was amazing, it was lovely. I got my honorary
Speaker 3: doctorate after playing a Actually who went there?
Speaker 2: When? When?
Speaker 4: When Wind not going to the oscars this year? Did
Speaker 4: you suffer from fomo?
Speaker 3: Actually? Actually no, it's funny I thought that I would.
Speaker 3: I did. I did wake up in the middle of
Speaker 3: the night at like two thirteen, and I was like,
Speaker 3: and I knew all of my friends who would just be.
Speaker 2: Rage for the granity Fair party.
Speaker 3: Where and when were you happiest?
Speaker 4: Well, it's like telepathic because it's just because we would
Speaker 4: just have the oscars. I was sitting with our daughter
Speaker 4: in an Italian restaurant at one thirty in the afternoon
Speaker 4: in English time. We both had iPhones on the table,
Speaker 4: leaning against the salt sellers. The names of the nominees
Speaker 4: came up, and when Timothy's name didn't come up, need
Speaker 4: always being pulled the boss the five. When Key didn't
Speaker 4: come up, I thought, oh, that's it, and I, you know, spit.
Speaker 4: Second I looked at our daughter and thought, I'm not
Speaker 4: I'm not getting a nomination and dang. Next second, name
Speaker 4: came up, So I think that's as you will know
Speaker 4: more than anybody. That's it is that moment that you
Speaker 4: feel the approbation or the sort of stample of approval
Speaker 4: of your peers that they have you feel seen.
Speaker 2: You know, you're think all away as an actor, and
Speaker 2: you do the stuff. And I never won any award
Speaker 2: or denominated for stuff ever was all so when this happened,
Speaker 2: it was such an aut of body experience that that
Speaker 2: moment I thought, I will never ever have this feeling
Speaker 2: again in quite the same way.
Speaker 4: And it's not like falling in larval, you know, when
Speaker 4: you get married or the birth of your child. It
Speaker 4: is something that is I don't know outside of that,
Speaker 4: and you I take for an actor just that basic equation,
Speaker 4: but a formula that I find most actors of big
Speaker 4: ego low self esteem, which is always contradictive for people
Speaker 4: to understand because they think, you know, you seem so confident,
Speaker 4: you know what you have low self esteem? You go, yeah,
Speaker 4: most actors I know do, but have a big enough
Speaker 4: eager to go.
Speaker 2: Give me the path over many drive. I can put
Speaker 2: on a right.
Speaker 4: And I can have Charlie hair, and I can puante
Speaker 4: more teeth, dumb ike and stuff. And I think that
Speaker 4: goes right back to being a kid, when it's like
Speaker 4: watch me, Dad, watch me map, and when your whole
Speaker 4: profession or it feels like your whole profession is kind
Speaker 4: of going.
Speaker 2: We see you.
Speaker 4: That was absolutely Zilo working and as good as anything
Speaker 4: every experience.
Speaker 3: It's so good to hear you say that, because it
Speaker 3: is an extraordinaryly rarefied experience and it is like a
Speaker 3: bolt of pure lightning. And you're right, it's about being
Speaker 3: I used to. I mean, I still think that ninety
Speaker 3: percent of parenting is witnessing the whole look at me,
Speaker 3: look at me on the swings man, we look at me,
Speaker 3: look at me do this thing, And that taken to
Speaker 3: the nth degree in kids who want to act and
Speaker 3: who love acting and are that way incline, it is
Speaker 3: about being witnessed. It's about being seen for this extraordinarily
Speaker 3: ephemeral and creative and strange magic that lives inside an actor.
Speaker 3: I know that sounds wildly poncy, but you know what
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 5: On the world and only let me just stop you there, madam,
Speaker 5: because I thought that it was a victim specifically to actors,
Speaker 5: and yet if somebody has delivered something, or has done
Speaker 5: some carpentry or fixed something or done with gardner whatever.
Speaker 2: Somebody's come to do something. You know they're being paid
Speaker 2: as we are paid.
Speaker 4: They want to be acknowledged and praised for it, just
Speaker 4: like the mediatest actor that I've ever timoplast.
Speaker 3: Sometimes more so it's the acknowledgment of your work.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: The exo because I think, like you've just said, whether
Speaker 3: you're a carpenter or a plumber, or an electrician or
Speaker 3: a teacher, the thing that you have inside I do
Speaker 3: for it to become exo, to not be that internal
Speaker 3: experience of this thing, is this thing that I love,
Speaker 3: but rather to put it on the outside and then
Speaker 3: to have people go, yes, indeed, I acknowledge that magic
Speaker 3: is magic. It's fleeting, but it is so wonderful.
Speaker 5: You know, it's all the climate I've been all the
Speaker 5: time when people say they give somebody a gift, and
Speaker 5: I hear the master.
Speaker 2: Person, But did you like it? Did you really like it?
Speaker 2: And think this is as needing as the only actor
Speaker 2: kind of going. Have you seen my show? Did you
Speaker 2: like that performance? For the basic rid.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent is to feel useful, needed and acknowledged.
Speaker 3: We just do it in like you know, clothes that
Speaker 3: get judged and people who are annoyed by what they
Speaker 3: can perceived to be an extraordinarily glamorous life. I would
Speaker 3: like to tell you, honestly, Manchester is a great, worthy,
Speaker 3: amazing northern city, but it is so dark and cold
Speaker 3: and rainy and pretty doer. I was shooting in a
Speaker 3: basement on a night shoot the other night, in the
Speaker 3: freezing cold rain, thinking there is nothing less glamorous in
Speaker 3: the whole world than pretending in a basement in the
Speaker 3: middle of the night for money.
Speaker 2: But it's still better than joming down a coal mine
Speaker 2: every day.
Speaker 3: In fact, that's exactly what jimmy Nesbit said. He literally
Speaker 3: said that he went it beats going down a coal mine,
Speaker 3: and I was like, correct, So what is the quality
Speaker 3: you like least about yourself?
Speaker 2: That doubt?
Speaker 4: And I have that every day, even at sixty seven
Speaker 4: three quarters. I try and that's why I yeah, Clampton shots,
Speaker 4: but at the beginning of every job, in particular, that
Speaker 4: that just comes in, like the ob truss lands on
Speaker 4: each shoulder goes you can't do this.
Speaker 2: Everybody the weed through is doing it. Williantly, and every
Speaker 2: word that comes out of your mouth is like dropping
Speaker 2: like a shrinking anvil, and people are going, oh my god,
Speaker 2: we should have thought, you know, and I could just
Speaker 2: see the name of the people, but would be my contemporan.
Speaker 4: So that is the thing that I've come to accept,
Speaker 4: that it's something that you have to just tell the
Speaker 4: thing to shut up. But sometimes it does overwhelm you.
Speaker 4: And right top after the first read through of something,
Speaker 4: and after the first day of shooting, I anticipate that
Speaker 4: I'm going to be fired the next day. And if
Speaker 4: i haven't been, I think win win. And this is
Speaker 4: not disingenious because I did a TV series that came
Speaker 4: up earlier this year and after the weed through the
Speaker 4: media actor, we did the weed through a chalklop in
Speaker 4: the afternoon, and at four thirty in the afternoon, my
Speaker 4: Asian coudinates said, little going back intomorrow because they've a placed.
Speaker 2: The lead act.
Speaker 6: Oh my god, fine, so you can be replaced like
Speaker 6: that is very real. I mean, that's only happened twice
Speaker 6: of my body is doing this, but the fact that
Speaker 6: it has happened and it does happen, I find feeds
Speaker 6: all that Parania, what's yours?
Speaker 3: Oh God? I mean, there's a mercurialness that I find
Speaker 3: terrifying in myself that I know I am a fundamentally
Speaker 3: good person. I've observed myself for fifty five years. I'm
Speaker 3: a good mother, and I know the nice things. But
Speaker 3: there is just this kraken in me that comes out
Speaker 3: sometimes of intolerance and impatience and not being aware of
Speaker 3: how powerful I think I am in my reactions and
Speaker 3: how that can affect other people. Made amends, truly, and
Speaker 3: if that's the only thing that comes with age, is
Speaker 3: an immediate and acute awareness. But in terms of like
Speaker 3: the quality that I like least about myself, it's the
Speaker 3: one that I need to shine the light on the
Speaker 3: most is impatience and not realizing that that might hurt
Speaker 3: somebody because of the way that I might react quickly
Speaker 3: to something.
Speaker 2: What this situation? Why you did lose it?
Speaker 3: I was doing something that required complete attention and someone
Speaker 3: kept asking me to focus on what they were doing,
Speaker 3: and I said, I just need five minutes. I just
Speaker 3: have to I'm really sorry, and I'd started there, and
Speaker 3: then they kept asking me, and eventually I was like,
Speaker 3: could you please just give me five minutes and it
Speaker 3: upset the person, It really upset them. But what can
Speaker 3: you do as like a fractured fragile human except to
Speaker 3: go this is my shittiest bit and this is the
Speaker 3: place that requires work. I am not perfect.
Speaker 2: Now you see yourself as a fractured fragile people, I think.
Speaker 3: We all are. And that's only looking at the fractured fragile.
Speaker 3: But it's then there are the great, wonderful, generous, kind,
Speaker 3: loving open parts of everybody that are comforting to others,
Speaker 3: and that all the good things. But I do think
Speaker 3: that we've sort of been told that we're meant to
Speaker 3: be perfect all the time, and it's impossible. So all
Speaker 3: you can do is when you see your imperfection happening,
Speaker 3: I think, is to acknowledge it, to have an awareness
Speaker 3: about it, to apologize if you need to apologize, To
Speaker 3: sit down and have a proper talk with yourself about
Speaker 3: this thing that you would continue you need and want
Speaker 3: to change, and file it under in the serenity prayer,
Speaker 3: God garant me the serenity to accept the things I
Speaker 3: cannot change and change the things that I can. Did
Speaker 3: you do what did you need to absolutely to absolutely apologized?
Speaker 3: Explain what was going on. I'm really sorry that was
Speaker 3: on me, that was my bad says what else can
Speaker 3: you do? Accept a knowledge in the moment that you're
Speaker 3: not at your best and say I'm really really sorry.
Speaker 3: I think about when people have done that with me,
Speaker 3: and if someone's looked me in the eye and apologized
Speaker 3: for an unkindness or anger, it's very hard for me
Speaker 3: not to forgive them because I think I feel like
Speaker 3: it's the acknowledgment of that behavior that is the most
Speaker 3: important thing.
Speaker 4: Have you worked with an actor or producer who is
Speaker 4: tefron coaching They don't care if they're runed all?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have. And also there seems to be absolutely
Speaker 3: no consequence at all. But my mother used to say
Speaker 3: to me, she was like the fact that there is
Speaker 3: always consequence for you. Mini if you have a harsh word,
Speaker 3: or you're sharp or something and someone tells you that
Speaker 3: they feel bad, is that you have the opportunity and
Speaker 3: the inclination to fix it and to work on it,
Speaker 3: and that that's a gift rather than get constantly getting
Speaker 3: away with it and having people speak badly about you.
Speaker 3: But you carry on working, and you you know, do
Speaker 3: you know what I mean when you said about doubt.
Speaker 3: It reminded me of that Peter Strawn piece of writing
Speaker 3: in Conclave that Ray Lyin says when he says, I'm
Speaker 3: paraphrating if everything was certain, there would be no mystery,
Speaker 3: and without mystery there would be no faith. So I'm
Speaker 3: supplanting mystery for doubt and the opposite of certainty, and
Speaker 3: that it does require a sort of a faith in
Speaker 3: the innate unics of you and that.
Speaker 2: People love you, or do you find that face?
Speaker 3: I honestly think you have to set your coordinance for everything,
Speaker 3: for everything that you want in yourself, that is difficult.
Speaker 3: You have to set your coordinance towards that, and your
Speaker 3: faith is that you hope that your ship will sail there.
Speaker 2: If it doesn't, then what do you do.
Speaker 3: You take a dead reckoning that is a sailing town, Richard.
Speaker 3: You take a dead reckoning from where you are when
Speaker 3: you don't know where you are and you don't know what.
Speaker 3: You take a dead reckoning, which is from the last
Speaker 3: known position. You take a reading of where you think
Speaker 3: you might be going. But I think it's about intention,
Speaker 3: not in so much in sailing. In sailing, you don't
Speaker 3: want to just intend to get to where.
Speaker 4: You're going, should there be an analysis of your lid
Speaker 4: you put your boat in at ports and something like, right,
Speaker 4: I'm intending to get to the Caribbean.
Speaker 3: I'm intending Barbados by lunchtime.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great course of action. Don't think
Speaker 2: it along, just go for it.
Speaker 3: What relationship, real or fictionalized, defines love for you?
Speaker 4: I've thought, because of my parents for Aircomony's divorce, that
Speaker 4: love didn't really exist in the way that the movies
Speaker 4: and the books said that they did. And I thought, well,
Speaker 4: if I never get mad and never have a child,
Speaker 4: I'll somehow be im mute to all that stuff. And then,
Speaker 4: of course, when I was twenty six, I met somebody
Speaker 4: who you knew, called Joan Washington and fell in love.
Speaker 4: That's the bit where you have no control over it,
Speaker 4: And then you know, I think that's more than anything
Speaker 4: about being love with somebody, is that you feel and
Speaker 4: are truly seen like no other human being sees or
Speaker 4: knows you in that way. That to me is the
Speaker 4: greatest giftable and worth more than any money that I
Speaker 4: might own.
Speaker 2: How would you describe what it is for you?
Speaker 3: It is the tolerance of that love is the love
Speaker 3: that I experience with my son Henry and with my
Speaker 3: boyfriend Addison. It encompasses all of the things that are
Speaker 3: beautiful and difficult, so to be seen as a whole
Speaker 3: human whats and all for better or worse, forever and
Speaker 3: ever are men unconditionally.
Speaker 2: And this is the first time you've been in love
Speaker 2: like this.
Speaker 3: I've been in love before, but there was all an imbalance.
Speaker 3: There was never it was either never reciprocated in the
Speaker 3: way I loved more or they loved more. This is
Speaker 3: the love that I realized I dreamed about, of the symbiosis,
Speaker 3: the roaring with laughter at the things that other people
Speaker 3: found difficult. He minds the very the very best in
Speaker 3: me and Henry, and the creation of our little family
Speaker 3: is the light of my life. Truly, It's really simple.
Speaker 3: It's so interesting when you say, at twenty six, you
Speaker 3: know you met Joan, who was and is a spectacular spirit.
Speaker 3: You knew when Joan had walked into the room. So
Speaker 3: the idea that you that you met and that you
Speaker 3: fell in love like I feel that incandescence and also
Speaker 3: that that lasted and that lasts today. I think your
Speaker 3: definition of love is I mean everybody's is different, right,
Speaker 3: but it's a really beautiful one.
Speaker 4: Have you ever had fan love for somebody that is
Speaker 4: lasted beyond being a teenager?
Speaker 3: Yes, I've loved Daniel day Lewis since I was twelve
Speaker 3: years old and he went to my school. And I've
Speaker 3: said this before on the show, and we were like
Speaker 3: vaguely were not related by blood, but he is the
Speaker 3: cousin of a man my aunt married, so there was
Speaker 3: this tenuous connection. And he was incredibly kind to me.
Speaker 3: And when I would stand in a driving rain watching
Speaker 3: him play football and old boys matches, and I'd wait
Speaker 3: and I'd walk back to the changing rooms with him,
Speaker 3: and he'd give me advice on the National Youth Theater
Speaker 3: and acting and just to keep reading and to keep
Speaker 3: reading plays and to keep being in as many plays
Speaker 3: as possible. And I love him with a complete devotion
Speaker 3: that was forged when I was twelve.
Speaker 2: And have you seen him as an adult?
Speaker 3: I have, not frequently at all, just a couple of times.
Speaker 3: We had a very long plane ride together, once which
Speaker 3: was honestly epic because I kept falling asleep and then
Speaker 3: waking up and I was still next to doubt, and
Speaker 3: then I think at the Oscars or the Golden Globes
Speaker 3: or something, and I went over that was the first
Speaker 3: time I've seen him since I was a kid, and
Speaker 3: said to him and his lovely wife, I said, you
Speaker 3: you made such a difference. You made it okay that
Speaker 3: I didn't get into the National Youth Theater, and that
Speaker 3: you made it okay to sort of keep figuring it
Speaker 3: out and you didn't have to follow anyone else's path.
Speaker 3: But I mean, it is a particular definition of love.
Speaker 2: It's a one side lot.
Speaker 4: I have that with somebody brought Barbara streisand I've got
Speaker 4: a two foot statue of her head sculpt But that
Speaker 4: is a completely one way.
Speaker 3: It's a one side, one side. It means it's perfect.
Speaker 4: It is perfect and when you meet and it's not
Speaker 4: a disappointment, you know the old never meet your heroes.
Speaker 4: You've met yours multiple times. I've met mine multiple times,
Speaker 4: and it is only an endorsement of that rather than
Speaker 4: it being.
Speaker 3: Disappointing.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly.
Speaker 4: That is another amazing which you're supposed to path through
Speaker 4: by the time adolescence has stopped and real well.
Speaker 3: It is funny that I love that there are some
Speaker 3: things that they're held in amber. They're held in some
Speaker 3: sort of energetic amber inside you, and they're just not
Speaker 3: subject to time. They just stay the way that they are.
Speaker 3: Like I know that I will love Daniel Da Lewis
Speaker 3: until the day that I die in a very particular, devoted,
Speaker 3: appreciative way, just as you will love Barbara Streisand what
Speaker 3: question would you most like answered?
Speaker 4: I want to know what has happened to my vast
Speaker 4: collection of Dinky toys that I had when I will
Speaker 4: the ply, and to know where they are, That's what
Speaker 4: I want to know.
Speaker 3: Where were they last?
Speaker 4: Well, they were all in Swazilang, which is now called
Speaker 4: Esporteini in some hemisphere in Southeast Africa. And I think
Speaker 4: that if I could have all my Dinky toys back then,
Speaker 4: the meaning of life would be complete for me.
Speaker 2: I would have no expectation. And beyond that, So, whether
Speaker 2: they've been destroyed in playing war, or whether they are buried.
Speaker 4: In the mud pies that I made when I was
Speaker 4: a kid, whether they're buried in the garden of the
Speaker 4: different houses that I grew up in, I don't know.
Speaker 4: But that is the question I would like answered much
Speaker 4: more than what I imagine most people ask is is their
Speaker 4: life after death?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the number one or isn't because dopes come back. Well,
Speaker 3: there's not life like this. It's not the same.
Speaker 4: This is it, This is it, this is it. I
Speaker 4: agree with you, and I'm very I'm reassured by that.
Speaker 4: I love No, this is it.
Speaker 2: MM.
Speaker 3: Will you live very presently? From the outside looking in
Speaker 3: or just from the time that I've spent with you,
Speaker 3: you live incredibly presently?
Speaker 4: That you have to you know, all the philosopher I've read,
Speaker 4: the analysis I've had, or the people that I've met,
Speaker 4: or the people that I've admired, I think that to
Speaker 4: live in a state of could have, would have, should
Speaker 4: have is torture. That if only part of life is
Speaker 4: you know, it's like remorse and regret. It doesn't fulfill anything.
Speaker 3: It's a dead end. It's an absolute dead end. Regret.
Speaker 3: There's only moving forward.
Speaker 2: I've stop this going border by the minute, and I
Speaker 2: can't stop this lava flowing. No, but I would like
Speaker 2: my dinky toy collection.
Speaker 3: On your dinky toys, you want to know where your
Speaker 3: dinky toys are? Have anyone out there? I mean, are
Speaker 3: there any identifying features that they have your name on them.
Speaker 4: No, because dinky toys are these dinky they're tiny matchbox
Speaker 4: cars and they are so cute, you know. So this
Speaker 4: is completely pristian of thinking you're the Madeline. If I
Speaker 4: found this match box dinky toy car or my childhood
Speaker 4: would be returned to me.
Speaker 3: Do you remember when the last time you saw them? When?
Speaker 3: That was?
Speaker 4: Well, when up until I was ten years old, up
Speaker 4: until nineteen sixty seven, because I was born in black
Speaker 4: and white, you see, because all my baby pictures on
Speaker 4: black and white. God chrome hadn't quite come in there.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's that's well, all of them back.
Speaker 3: Yours is now my number two favorite answer to that question.
Speaker 3: My number one will forever be Jamina Jamil. When I
Speaker 3: said what question would you? Mostly answered and like quick
Speaker 3: as a snap, she was like, yeah, I really want
Speaker 3: to know if any women really enjoy reverse cowboy.
Speaker 2: The fuck? It's reverse cowboy.
Speaker 3: It's a sexual position, Richard, and I did that cowboy?
Speaker 2: Yeah you do with your hands? How how did that work?
Speaker 3: If you're sitting on a man but you're facing backwards,
Speaker 3: he's essentially waiting reverse cowgirl shit, reverse cowboy? Fuckar. I
Speaker 3: love it when your producer has to put in the
Speaker 3: chat it's reverse cowgirls.
Speaker 4: The man is sitting on the chair or sitting Oh
Speaker 4: my god, this is okay, and leadership it's the other way.
Speaker 3: No, he's eyeing on the bed as far as I know,
Speaker 3: and she is facing away from him, so he's looking
Speaker 3: at her back. That's reverse cowgirl as far as I know.
Speaker 3: Maybe I've been doing it wrong all these is well,
Speaker 3: I've certainly been giving it the wrong name. I've been
Speaker 3: calling it reverse cowboy.
Speaker 2: I've had a very sheltered life that I had no
Speaker 2: idea what you were talking about.
Speaker 3: Well, now you do.
Speaker 2: I do.
Speaker 3: But as you can see, I'm a terrible teacher because
Speaker 3: I don't know what it's called.
Speaker 4: I'm not entirely Shane going to extract this particular moment
Speaker 4: and say they were discussing.
Speaker 3: We don't worry. It's me who looks bad, not you.
Speaker 3: As per usual, what person place for experience most altered
Speaker 3: your life?
Speaker 2: London? London.
Speaker 4: Everything that's has been life enhancing, life changing, life charging, reverberating.
Speaker 4: Everything that has happened to me has happened in the
Speaker 4: city in which I live and which.
Speaker 2: I've speaking to you from.
Speaker 4: Now I genuinely felt like when I emigrated here when
Speaker 4: I was twenty five that I felt like Dick Whittington
Speaker 4: and the Panther arriving with a rocksack of stuff. I
Speaker 4: think I've come here to find my fortune, and everything
Speaker 4: that has.
Speaker 2: Happened workwise, love wise, family wise is so beyond anything
Speaker 2: that I could have dared anticipate that I feel like
Speaker 2: I've won the pot of gold.
Speaker 3: And you attribute that to London.
Speaker 4: Yeah, because the people are here, the spirit of the
Speaker 4: place and the sense of you are, and the culture
Speaker 4: and the history and just all of it, and the weather.
Speaker 2: All of it contributed in a profound and even arbitrary,
Speaker 2: chaotic way and has completely shaped my legs. And I've
Speaker 2: now been here for forty three years and counting, so
Speaker 2: I've lived here much longer than I lived in Swaza,
Speaker 2: where I grew up. What's yours?
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness, I think having Henry changed my life
Speaker 3: so extraordinarily in a way I could never have imagined.
Speaker 3: But before that, this one weekend where my lovely then
Speaker 3: agent gave me the money to go to New York.
Speaker 3: My first film hadn't come out yet, and she said,
Speaker 3: I think you should go and meet some casting directors
Speaker 3: in New York and I was like, I don't have
Speaker 3: any money to get there, and she said, oh no,
Speaker 3: I'm going to pay for your ticket and I'll pay
Speaker 3: for a hotel just for a couple of nights. And
Speaker 3: she sent me off, and in that time I met
Speaker 3: a casting director who gave me a job. In the room,
Speaker 3: there were two directors next door an actress had fallen out.
Speaker 3: It was extraordinary coincidence. And I didn't go home. I
Speaker 3: had a little tiny overnight, you know, two day case
Speaker 3: with me and I didn't go home for two So
Speaker 3: that experience going to New York on what was meant
Speaker 3: to be for a weekend and my mother rather sniffy
Speaker 3: looking over what I was packing, and when she saw
Speaker 3: I wasn't packing any bras, she was like, oh, You're
Speaker 3: never coming back. I wrote about it in my book
Speaker 3: because it was so funny. It was such an amazing moment.
Speaker 3: I was like, how the fuck? What does she know?
Speaker 3: Of course I'm coming back and coming back on Monday.
Speaker 2: Oh, how old I was?
Speaker 3: Twenty three? Wow, I was a baby. Yeah, I was
Speaker 3: a young twenty three as well. Yeah, So that was
Speaker 3: so you've never looked, never looked back on an adventure
Speaker 3: really like riding a wave like it has been, like
Speaker 3: riding away.
Speaker 2: You feel in America you are on a much better
Speaker 2: surf wave and tide than you ever were in England.
Speaker 3: Well, for a woman in England in the late eighties
Speaker 3: early nineties to want to be as free and as
Speaker 3: wild as I wanted to be, and as give me
Speaker 3: life or give me nothing, it was incredibly unseen in London.
Speaker 3: And there was something in America that embraced my feeling
Speaker 3: of how far could I ride this wave? Like how
Speaker 3: big could this wave be? How far could I go?
Speaker 3: Oh my goodness? And I didn't feel like I could
Speaker 3: do that in London. I didn't feel like that was supported.
Speaker 3: If I were a man, I think it would have
Speaker 3: been different.
Speaker 2: Do you feel that London by comparison is provincial?
Speaker 3: No, not provincial. But there was definitely a sneariness and
Speaker 3: a sniffiness to the ambition that I had of the limitlessness.
Speaker 3: It was like it wanted to put a cap on it,
Speaker 3: and how dare you want more than what you have?
Speaker 3: Which you know it's a conservative way of looking at things.
Speaker 2: That is absolutely you've just nailed what I kind of Quintessentially,
Speaker 2: British attitude is to ambition and success. If you're a
Speaker 2: British actor and only said what are you doing next?
Speaker 4: And you said, oh, I'm during Student Spielberg and then
Speaker 4: I'm doing one of the curtain Tarantina. Having sort of
Speaker 4: like played down where's in La or New York, somebody
Speaker 4: says what are you doing next? I'm doing See, there's
Speaker 4: a license to be as celebratory as you did without
Speaker 4: it being sort poppy syndrome where there's a sort of
Speaker 4: mate instinct or desire to catch you down to size.
Speaker 2: And go who the hell did think you are?
Speaker 3: And I don't I don't disbelieve that that humility is
Speaker 3: important and that staying grounded and true. And I definitely
Speaker 3: went out to the furthest reaches of the stars with
Speaker 3: celebrity and fame and then came crashing back to earth
Speaker 3: and that that was a good thing. But I wanted
Speaker 3: that experience of absolute It's the same feeling of taking
Speaker 3: off on a wave that you know is far too
Speaker 3: fucking big for you and it's going to smash you,
Speaker 3: but in that moment and if you make the drop
Speaker 3: and you ride it, even for a few seconds, the
Speaker 3: feeling is it is so extraordinary, You're in concert with
Speaker 3: something that is so powerful and amazing and unfettered. I
Speaker 3: think it was that feeling of that freedom that was
Speaker 3: absolutely it was just divine and I made too.
Speaker 2: You are fearless, you.
Speaker 3: Know what, there's a fearless quality that might also be
Speaker 3: WA's the word when it's a bit dangerous, folly, But
Speaker 3: in the moment, there is a fearlessness that I embrace
Speaker 3: that I love and I know I'm very good at
Speaker 3: being able to support people who are not feeling fearless
Speaker 3: and to really help them find that courage to find
Speaker 3: I'm good at helping people find courage. I know that
Speaker 3: that's a good thing about me.
Speaker 4: Like you to funnel some down in my brain on
Speaker 4: a daily basis, please feed me that fearlessness.
Speaker 2: I'm very grateful for that.
Speaker 3: Love. Well, it gets you into all sorts of it's
Speaker 3: misinterpreted and its People don't like it. They don't like
Speaker 3: seeing people feel is. They're like, why should you be
Speaker 3: able to go and do that? How dare you h like?
Speaker 3: That was always the feeling, certainly like in England, that
Speaker 3: you had to be an awful, ambitious, terrible person in
Speaker 3: order to want to go and embrace something unknown. Fully,
Speaker 3: there was always that payment, and I think particularly for women,
Speaker 3: like it was really unseemly for women to be ambitious
Speaker 3: and wanting. Men are always allowed to be ambitious.
Speaker 2: And do you think that's it?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I think it's changing. I do, I really do. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And I think as you get older, you're far more
Speaker 3: able to articulate calmly. And what on earth are you
Speaker 3: talking about?
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 3: Having wonderful goals and dreams and ambitions and what you're
Speaker 3: setting your course for is big and unbridled and beautiful.
Speaker 3: Why on earth is that a bad thing?
Speaker 2: How do you see world? Bait?
Speaker 3: Gosh? I mean, I really strive for it to be
Speaker 3: physically abundant. I really really hope. My neighbor she swam
Speaker 3: every single day for the twenty years that we live
Speaker 3: next door to each other. So from seventy until ninety
Speaker 3: that's what I want. I want to be in a
Speaker 3: black bathing suit, walking down to the ocean, diving in
Speaker 3: at seventy eight, eighty eighty four, lying on my back the.
Speaker 2: Next forty till you're ninety five, and then beyond that.
Speaker 3: I'd really like to have a physical and mental acuity,
Speaker 3: and I would really like to continue to sort of
Speaker 3: share stories in some fashion. That's my dream. And for
Speaker 3: my son and my partner to be healthy and happy.
Speaker 3: That's it. Oh, that's my dream.
Speaker 2: Simple. So you don't need to go to any therapy
Speaker 2: or analysis from nowmers, because it's clear maybe you don't
Speaker 2: do you.
Speaker 3: You know, I have done god loads currently. I felt
Speaker 3: very clear about the shit that I've got to work on,
Speaker 3: and I will sit down and work on it. I'll
Speaker 3: write about it, I will look at it, I will
Speaker 3: turn it over, I will meditate, like I feel like
Speaker 3: that's maybe what's glorious about being fifty five is that
Speaker 3: I've observed the observable stuff about myself and now you
Speaker 3: it's really just about working on it or enjoying, enjoying
Speaker 3: the fruits of your labor, being available to help others
Speaker 3: like I love I love working with younger actors and
Speaker 3: actresses and so gee them along and God, don't worry
Speaker 3: about that. And this is so brilliant. And you know
Speaker 3: it wasn't like that when I was a kid.
Speaker 4: Jenner Bob was really leveling. I've just been on holiday
Speaker 4: on Lamu Island off the Kenyan Coast, two teenage girls,
Speaker 4: one was eighteen, one was sixteen, and they said to me,
Speaker 4: which female actor do you know holding high esteem?
Speaker 2: I said, well, this person has had most nominations, and
Speaker 2: I worried you that once on the iron lady paying
Speaker 2: it's more bold. But the person that I'd been most
Speaker 2: inspired by being around a Washington career all these decades
Speaker 2: is male Street. And they had no idea who she
Speaker 2: was christ or didn't know Male Street.
Speaker 3: It all goes to dust, It all just goes to dust.
Speaker 4: And they then said, well, what has she been in?
Speaker 4: And I started scrubbing my brain and well, what would
Speaker 4: they feasibly have seen? I said, have you seen Mama
Speaker 4: mir No? And I thought, well, yeah, that was It's
Speaker 4: sort of straight thing to hear. Yeah, sober and and
Speaker 4: you know the only thing, Well, that's just the it's.
Speaker 3: Just the way it is. You just do the work,
Speaker 3: like you know how I feel about with no al
Speaker 3: and you know that that's it. That's it's in the
Speaker 3: same place that Daniel de lewis. It's in my heart.
Speaker 3: It sits unfettered perfection. So to have made and you've
Speaker 3: made many films that have that effect on people from
Speaker 3: the player to take your pick, but that particularly is
Speaker 3: it enough that you know what Meryl Street meant to you?
Speaker 3: I know what you mean to me and what you
Speaker 3: mean to my son, By the way, in having watched
Speaker 3: with now, perhaps it's enough and that that's the evolution,
Speaker 3: is that we all arrive at a day where the
Speaker 3: teenagers go, I have no idea who you're talking about.
Speaker 3: That's completely meaningless to me, and it's awful, And it's
Speaker 3: also how it is. That is the.
Speaker 2: Steve Martin said to me ten years ago.
Speaker 4: We were talking about, you know, you're talking about that
Speaker 4: point of retiring and it was pre only murders in
Speaker 4: the building, sort of giving him a whole new career
Speaker 4: on television. He said, most people's careers are over five
Speaker 4: years before they realize.
Speaker 2: That they are.
Speaker 4: And he said, you have five YouTube clips of your career.
Speaker 4: That's probably as good as I thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Again, it's sort of reassuring.
Speaker 4: It's so ephemeral a short short amount of time, so
Speaker 4: enjoy it while it's around.
Speaker 2: That's I suppose my philosophy. This stuff.
Speaker 4: It sort of helps quell the doubt of you know,
Speaker 4: I think, well, these teenagers didn't know who Males Street Bars,
Speaker 4: I thought, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Just all you can do is just keep is just
Speaker 3: like keep showing up, keep on trucking, keep on trucking,
Speaker 3: and keep hoping that there's a place for you in
Speaker 3: the workplace that you can still offer.
Speaker 2: At my stage of the world, old fart parts still available.
Speaker 3: But you are so in demand. Richard, like, that's list.
Speaker 2: It sounds like I'm hard pooning for you to reassure me.
Speaker 2: I'm not. I'm just sending out the lines there of
Speaker 2: the reality of what I think it is.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because there are so many actors, don't you find
Speaker 7: you look at online on Instagram all the people's dresses
Speaker 7: and the stuff for the people who went to the Oscars,
Speaker 7: and the people were with the Vanity Fair part. So
Speaker 7: many people and there are so many people names I've
Speaker 7: heard of.
Speaker 2: But if I had to be in a lineup, would
Speaker 2: I be able to identify room? Do you know who
Speaker 2: everybody is?
Speaker 3: No? I mean I know lots of them, but I
Speaker 3: don't know loads. I also put that into the kind
Speaker 3: of that there is so much content now, there are
Speaker 3: so many more platforms for content. It used to just
Speaker 3: be there are films and then there are you know,
Speaker 3: network television and now it's just endless feeding the beast
Speaker 3: of streaming. And I think that if you love it
Speaker 3: and you're lucky enough, as you know, my dad said,
Speaker 3: find what you love and get someone to pay you
Speaker 3: to do it. So if someone is still paying you
Speaker 3: to do this thing that you love, were quits in.
Speaker 2: Now you're up. I agree, and.
Speaker 3: That there will always be a wave, just as we
Speaker 3: were the wave of young the new upcoming talent. There
Speaker 3: will always be this replenishing wave. People will always be
Speaker 3: moving into the next season of their life if they're lucky,
Speaker 3: And that it's an aberration to think that that flow
Speaker 3: should be anything other than that flow. That you know,
Speaker 3: you can't buck against the seasons. You've got to embrace them,
Speaker 3: right Indeed, indeed, I mean I'm saying this obviously, like
Speaker 3: I don't do it every day. I'm trying to say
Speaker 3: the best version of it, like it's really it's gutting.
Speaker 3: Gravity is gutting gravity on one's face and bottom is
Speaker 3: just terrific. Like that I could do without that. No
Speaker 3: more reverse, no reverse Cowgirl for me because of gravity.
Speaker 3: What would be your last meal?
Speaker 4: A dozen oysters and two dozen giant Indian ocean prawns
Speaker 4: that about ten inches long.
Speaker 3: Ah, and that you shell yourself. This is that part
Speaker 3: of the whole.
Speaker 8: Thing, yahnu oh yeah, darling butter on top, and then
Speaker 8: an entire Christmas pudding with light chi sorbe that only
Speaker 8: I would get to eat and most people don't like.
Speaker 2: So I've got twenty Chris well, where of a dining breed?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 3: I know we are with lightweight, with light che yum.
Speaker 3: That is very very delicious. I know that you would
Speaker 3: recently you were in the ocean, did you eat some.
Speaker 2: Drank pron and I had some for lunch today? What
Speaker 2: was yours mine?
Speaker 3: It's the roast chicken that my mother taught me to
Speaker 3: make with the most delicious gravy, roast potatoes, some giant
Speaker 3: pile of greens, roast parsnips, carrots, a Yorkshire pudding, amazingly
Speaker 3: succulent chicken, and then apple and BlackBerry crumble with cream. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm it's just ITT's pristian. It's the most delicious food.
Speaker 3: When I was growing up, that was the most food
Speaker 3: that we had was on a Sunday when one would
Speaker 3: cook that. Like she was a really good cook, but
Speaker 3: she was a sparse cook. She never cooked quite enough,
Speaker 3: but on Sunday there was plenty, and I was quite
Speaker 3: greedy and always hungry.
Speaker 2: And what is the weirdest final meal that you've had
Speaker 2: on any guest?
Speaker 3: Offering up David, who is this extraordinary neuroscientist, like truly
Speaker 3: one of the most fascinating like scientist people, a scientific
Speaker 3: person I've talked to. He wanted a protein shape. He
Speaker 3: wanted to still be feeding his brain protein and I
Speaker 3: was like, but you're about to die well, And it
Speaker 3: was just what I loved is that he was just
Speaker 3: it was almost like the absolute denial that this was
Speaker 3: his last meal. That was like, I'm still want to
Speaker 3: be feeding protein to my brain, which, by the way,
Speaker 3: for a neuroscientist, that's really on brand, Like that's really cool,
Speaker 3: but like super super, super great and weird. I love
Speaker 3: that answer, though we.
Speaker 2: Couldn't be having a last meal with David Eagleman.
Speaker 3: Then my last question is in your life, can you
Speaker 3: tell me about something that has grown out of a
Speaker 3: personal disaster?
Speaker 4: Y Ah, When my father died of lung cancer at
Speaker 4: the age of fifty two, when I'm twenty four, I
Speaker 4: thought that if I lived till fifty three, I would
Speaker 4: have kind of broken that curse or whatever it is
Speaker 4: you call it. That's a benchmark of his life, so
Speaker 4: that every year that I've lived since then has felt
Speaker 4: like a bonus. But more than anything, I because I
Speaker 4: was acutely aware of how young that was to die,
Speaker 4: and as I got closer to fifty two myself.
Speaker 2: I thought, wow, it really is just feel young. And
Speaker 2: I think more than anything, it is galvanized my thinking
Speaker 2: and desire to try and get everything I can out
Speaker 2: of every day.
Speaker 9: Of my life that I have because he's ended so
Speaker 9: halfway through you know what he might have lived done
Speaker 9: to so that that has had a profound ongoing effect
Speaker 9: on that.
Speaker 2: So whether you call that the.
Speaker 4: Starst or not, I don't know, but it's absolutely galvilized
Speaker 4: me when they know I'm very impatient and I just
Speaker 4: want everything, and you know, I just feel like I'm
Speaker 4: running at life going I'll gobble it up. So that
Speaker 4: is what I think my father's death had that effect
Speaker 4: on me.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, that's really that's really amazing.
Speaker 2: And what's yours.
Speaker 3: I think that there was a big change when I
Speaker 3: had Henry and I was a single mother, and I
Speaker 3: really realized that that sort of going off around the
Speaker 3: world making independent films was not something that I wanted
Speaker 3: to do with a tiny baby on my own, and
Speaker 3: that I couldn't necessarily make enough money doing that because
Speaker 3: it wasn't particularly well paid at all, and I knew
Speaker 3: I didn't want to be scrabbling to piece his childhood together.
Speaker 3: So I made this very conscious turn into network television,
Speaker 3: which I'm eternally grateful for, but it was it was
Speaker 3: a sobering moment to move from the wildness of filmmaking
Speaker 3: and this kind of immediacy into very prosaic and formulaic
Speaker 3: creativity that sometimes didn't feel like creativity, and I knew
Speaker 3: the reason that I'd done it, and there was a
Speaker 3: heartbreak in it that was really difficult. But what came
Speaker 3: out of that was this childhood. This eight years that
Speaker 3: I was fortunate enough to be on two television shows,
Speaker 3: paid handsomely, working with lovely people, and it wasn't going
Speaker 3: to change the world kind of necessarily what we did,
Speaker 3: but there was a steadiness and a kindness and a
Speaker 3: wonder in watching Henry have this childhood of having tea
Speaker 3: at home and oftentimes I could be there and that
Speaker 3: I could put him to bed, and that I wasn't
Speaker 3: worried about paying the mortgage, and I knew he was
Speaker 3: going to be okay, and I could put money in
Speaker 3: a college fund for him, and all of these things
Speaker 3: and him turning out to just be this incredible person,
Speaker 3: calm and funny, and that like I thought that, I'd well,
Speaker 3: I'm giving up this whole thing, this dream that I've
Speaker 3: always had, and I'm embracing this other kind of a life.
Speaker 3: And I thought it was going to be terrible, and
Speaker 3: all that grew out of it was wonderful. Win win, yeah, absolutely, win, win,
Speaker 3: win win. Darning Richard, you provoke and like an interrogation
Speaker 3: of life always whenever I'm with you, and I know
Speaker 3: that you do that with everybody else. That is so
Speaker 3: sincerely wonderful and amazing. And I know what profound sorrow
Speaker 3: you have experienced and how you have turned that into
Speaker 3: something that is a gift for everybody else will forever
Speaker 3: be in total awe of you, because that's what that's
Speaker 3: what you do. Truly amazing, amazing and wonderful. And I
Speaker 3: can't thank you enough.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me on your Zoo mini driver, brilliant,
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Thank you many Questions is hosted andritten by Me Mini Driver,
Speaker 3: Executive produced by Me and Aaron Kaufman, with production support
Speaker 3: from Jennifer Bassett, Zoey Denkler and Ali Perry. The theme
Speaker 3: music is also by Me and additional music by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 3: Special thanks to Jim Nikolay Addison, O'Day, Henry Driver, Lisa Castella,
Speaker 3: Anick Oppenheim, a, Nick Mueller and Annette Wolfe, a WKPR,
Speaker 3: Will Pearson, Nicki Etoor, Morgan Levoy and mangesh At Tigadore