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Speaker 1: Hi everyone, It's Sophia and welcome back to work in progress.

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Speaker 1: Today's guest is Jason Isaacs, remarkable actor, philanthropists and someone

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Speaker 1: who makes me laugh every day at work. I'm gonna

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Speaker 1: guess that you already know Jason. If you don't know

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Speaker 1: him as Lucius Malfoy in the Harry Potter series, you

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Speaker 1: might know him as Captain Hook and Peter Pan or

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Speaker 1: Colonel William Tavington in The Patriot, or Hap in The

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Speaker 1: o A. When we first met Trust that I fan

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Speaker 1: girl to him about that show. Perhaps you've seen him

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Speaker 1: in his latest tour to force film mass or maybe

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Speaker 1: you know him the way I know him best as

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Speaker 1: my TV dad, Dr Rob Griffith on Good Sam. Jason's

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Speaker 1: coming awfully long way since his first appearance in Mel

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Speaker 1: Smith's The Tall Guy In Originally from Liverpool, Jason and

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Speaker 1: his family moved to London when he was a child,

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Speaker 1: where he experienced his own injustice that shaped his outlook

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Speaker 1: and no doubt influenced the legacy he wants to leave

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Speaker 1: on the world around him. You might have heard, but

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Speaker 1: Jason has been an incredible supporter of the British Red Cross.

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Speaker 1: With his ultimate Harry Potter quiz that raised seventy eight

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Speaker 1: thousand dollars just last year for the Red Cross. He's

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Speaker 1: visited refugee projects to learn how the Red Cross is

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Speaker 1: helping over half a million refugees rebuild their lives, and

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Speaker 1: he works constantly to destigmatize their experience by lending his

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Speaker 1: platform to their voices. Whatever he's doing. Throughout his career

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Speaker 1: of well over a hundred films, he has been an

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Speaker 1: advocate for those who feel inferior, for those who have

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Speaker 1: been marginalized, and for those whose voices are not being heard.

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Speaker 1: For someone who often plays a villain, Jason Isaacs is

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Speaker 1: an incredibly caring and deeply empathetic human being who I

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Speaker 1: am so glad to call my real life friend and

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Speaker 1: my make believe dad. We're going to find out more

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Speaker 1: about his life, his career, and his incredible work right here,

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Speaker 1: right now. And we had such a good conversation that

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Speaker 1: we've actually decided to break this up into two episodes. Enjoy.

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Speaker 1: You know, And it's weird you're not talking on microphones.

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Speaker 1: I know it is weird. I think I can look

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Speaker 1: at you. It's funny to be first of all, it's

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Speaker 1: funny that we're sitting in my living room where we've

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Speaker 1: sat before, but with microphones, and it's weird. I know

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Speaker 1: I was saying this to you before I turned the

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Speaker 1: recorder on. But other than you and Sky, I haven't

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Speaker 1: interviewed anyone in person since. But you know something, that's

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Speaker 1: my favorite bit of when we lived in California. So

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Speaker 1: I lived into Pango outside you know where it is,

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Speaker 1: but but it was about a forty five minute dry

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Speaker 1: to take the kids to school, and we have these

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Speaker 1: amazing conversations because we weren't looking at each other. And

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Speaker 1: when you look at someone, if I sit down my

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Speaker 1: teenage kids now there, they wouldn't sit down, but it

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Speaker 1: would be a three second conversation. But in a car

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Speaker 1: you can do it. And somehow, maybe remotely, you can

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Speaker 1: have conversations because you're not looking at someone. I might

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Speaker 1: have to my chair away from you, like in a therapist.

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna I'm just gonna turn my chair away

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Speaker 1: because it's weird. It's already a weird dynamic that in

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Speaker 1: all interviews are weird on there because I always want

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Speaker 1: to apologize to journalists afterwards and go if I meet

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Speaker 1: you socially, I'll just listen to you all night because

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Speaker 1: it's one side, and you know, notionally you're meant to

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Speaker 1: do all the talking, and you try and make it

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Speaker 1: social and normal, but that's not normal, it's just rude. Well,

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Speaker 1: you can ask me things if you want to. I will.

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Speaker 1: Nothing's really nothing's really after something. So you're so good

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Speaker 1: at the social stuff. I watch you navigate your way

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Speaker 1: around all the social media, and I have many friends

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Speaker 1: who do it. But some stuff is off. So everybody

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Speaker 1: has this version of I'm going to share what I

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Speaker 1: think confeeling to share, even if I've mental health issues,

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Speaker 1: or will Smith and his family sit down and pour

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Speaker 1: out their marital issues and stuff? What's private? What did

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Speaker 1: we you know? So what version of the do we

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Speaker 1: share with the public and what do we keep? I know,

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Speaker 1: it's really it's tricky to figure those things out, especially

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Speaker 1: because if you have nothing that is sacred, you have

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Speaker 1: nothing that is yours. But then I know, for example,

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Speaker 1: you brought them up, you know, I know how revolutionary

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Speaker 1: watching Jada show Red Table Talk has felt to me,

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Speaker 1: and the way that they've been able to usher certain

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Speaker 1: conversations into households. I think he's so incredible and and

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Speaker 1: recently when he was on his book tour, something clicked

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Speaker 1: for me, and I wonder if it might resonate with you.

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Speaker 1: I looked at him and I went, oh, they're in

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Speaker 1: their teaching stage. They had a privacy stage, and now

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Speaker 1: they're they're in a teaching stage. And I know that

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Speaker 1: as an individual, I've gone through so many stages, and

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Speaker 1: I know there's more stages of my life to come.

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Speaker 1: And I wonder if maybe some stages you want to

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Speaker 1: be deeply private and some of them you want to

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Speaker 1: shout from the rooftops. I don't know. I think it's

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Speaker 1: unquestionably to the right that then exposing themselves, peeling all

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Speaker 1: the layers back, it's incredibly helpful to people watching. There's

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Speaker 1: no no And you and I both know Este Perel,

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Speaker 1: who I think it's magnificent, and her podcasts where couples

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Speaker 1: come and have kind of all their therapy, is incredibly helpful,

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Speaker 1: useful to people listening. I'm just saying that you and

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Speaker 1: I are performances, so I think it's valuable. What the

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Speaker 1: Smiths are doing is incredible. What they're doing. I just

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Speaker 1: don't want to be that person. So but I'm look,

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Speaker 1: I'm much older, new I sometimes have to remind myself

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Speaker 1: that I'm playing your dad because I'm actually old enough

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Speaker 1: to be your dad, which is odd because we're empoies.

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Speaker 1: But I still feel and it's ludicrous to hang onto

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Speaker 1: things that just aren't going to reverse. But I still

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Speaker 1: remember how much I worshiped those actors that seem so

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Speaker 1: enigmatic to me that I only saw on screen, and

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Speaker 1: whose private lives. I knew nothing about their sexuality. I

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Speaker 1: knew nothing about their what income brackets they came from,

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Speaker 1: you know, whether they did Roberts, you know his father

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Speaker 1: being a well off painter and stuff, you know, just

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Speaker 1: anything about the character. I wanted to suspend my disbelief

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Speaker 1: watch them on screen and think they could be anybody

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Speaker 1: they pretend to be, and and as an actor, I

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Speaker 1: still kind of fantasize that that ought to be the case.

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Speaker 1: I don't want people even to hear me talking this

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Speaker 1: accent it, since I play Americans so often, I don't

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Speaker 1: want to be watching, Oh he's putting on American accent um.

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Speaker 1: But I think it's just it's ludicrous. That just isn't

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Speaker 1: the way the world works. Yeah, it's all true, and

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Speaker 1: none of it's true, and it's all happening simultaneously, and

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Speaker 1: it's so confusing, and I do I try and chair

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Speaker 1: if I don't know, I don't remember what to do

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Speaker 1: with social media. I don't know who to be on it. Um.

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Speaker 1: I do think people are given comfort and strength when

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Speaker 1: you pull the curtain back on us and you show

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Speaker 1: them that you are also scared or unsure or a

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Speaker 1: bunch of other stuff. Um. It feels like that's a mission,

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Speaker 1: that's a vocation. So why before the pandemic, I used

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Speaker 1: to go around to conventions around the world because I've

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Speaker 1: been in so many different fantasy films and it will

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Speaker 1: be very easy to sit there and sign autographs or whatever,

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Speaker 1: and and make people feel like they've met one of

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Speaker 1: their I don't know superheroes, well, it was people they

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Speaker 1: placed on a pedestal, And I always have felt it's

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Speaker 1: my mission in that one minute to make them realize

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Speaker 1: that I'm just an idiot who forgets to take the

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Speaker 1: bins out, put some makeup and funny voices, and don't

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Speaker 1: deserve any more space in the world than they do,

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Speaker 1: because that can happen. So I do think social media

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Speaker 1: is useful for that, but not when you want people

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Speaker 1: to watch us and believe that we are father and

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Speaker 1: daughter surgeons, for instance, they know too much about us. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think there has to be a bit of a balance.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm not a person who puts a ton

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Speaker 1: of my private life out in the world. For a

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Speaker 1: long time, I didn't put any of it out in

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Speaker 1: the world, which you know, as you know, lead to

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Speaker 1: such It always leads to the rumor mill where you go,

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Speaker 1: am I dating that person? That would be cool? Um? Wow,

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Speaker 1: I didn't know that. My god, this money that no

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Speaker 1: one ever told me about. Where is it? The Internet

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Speaker 1: says I have and where is it? Um? I think

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Speaker 1: what's been powerful for me about the space is the

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Speaker 1: ability to connect unexpectedly and you know, as you said,

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Speaker 1: what you can create when you're a person with a platform.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's even an interesting term because listen,

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Speaker 1: if someone listening has, you know, an account with five

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Speaker 1: followers who are their friends, they have a bigger platform

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Speaker 1: with those five people than I ever will. Um. But

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Speaker 1: I think when you when you sort of are willing

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Speaker 1: to spend the privilege of a platform with some honesty,

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Speaker 1: maybe even some radical honesty, what's been very cool for me,

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Speaker 1: you know, talking about anxiety or navigating mental health or

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out my place in the world as

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Speaker 1: a woman and a creative And I meet people, you know,

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Speaker 1: at at the conventions we do, and they say, you know,

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Speaker 1: I read this thing that you wrote, this post that

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Speaker 1: you shared, and I realized, if you struggle with that,

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Speaker 1: I'm not weird because I struggle with it if it

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Speaker 1: happens to you, Like, why wouldn't it happen to me? Sure,

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Speaker 1: if I'm not in any way questioning the value of

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Speaker 1: that's what we do in art, telling fictional stories as

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Speaker 1: well as the factual stories about ourselves. I'm just saying

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Speaker 1: that I I feel odd about doing it. I'm really

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Speaker 1: glad other people do it and I do do it sometimes.

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Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons though I have no idea

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Speaker 1: who to be on Twitter or Instagram and over those things,

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Speaker 1: because on the one hand, I was railing against Donald

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Speaker 1: Trump for a long time and trying to persuade people

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Speaker 1: to see the truth of what was going on and

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Speaker 1: other political things. I work for some of the charities

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Speaker 1: and have trying to make people see refugees of the

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Speaker 1: human beings and not parasites or whatever, just to dispel

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Speaker 1: the myths and and then I meant to promote things

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Speaker 1: that I'm in and then I want to make really

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Speaker 1: stupid jokes. You know, I want to post ridiculous gifts

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Speaker 1: as well. And I think, you know, if there's hundreds

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Speaker 1: of thousands of people waiting for some sense that they're

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Speaker 1: not alone politically, they don't want to read my pums.

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Speaker 1: And if there's people who want Harry Potter gossip, they

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Speaker 1: don't want to be told that most of Afghanistan is

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Speaker 1: starving right now and could do what I help. You know.

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Speaker 1: So I'm not quite sure which of my multiple personalities

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Speaker 1: to be. I'm not either, But what I lean on

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Speaker 1: all the time is I'm a complete person. And if

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Speaker 1: I was draw a part of myself, not necessarily on

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Speaker 1: social because again there's things I don't share there, but

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Speaker 1: if I withdraw a part of myself, I'm just turning

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Speaker 1: my back on part of myself. I'm making myself smaller.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we talk about this. I live in

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Speaker 1: a very mean head. I don't need any more encouragement

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Speaker 1: to be small, and then the engouragement from my own brain.

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Speaker 1: But I'm fascinated just by the it, the duality and

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Speaker 1: the opposition and the juxtaposition even in what it means

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Speaker 1: to be an artist and to try to make art,

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Speaker 1: to be unknown so that you can be anyone, but

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Speaker 1: also to be known enough that you get to play people.

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Speaker 1: There is a paradox in that I would do back

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Speaker 1: to back independent movies, uh in disguise if I possibly could,

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Speaker 1: because I come from that tradition where which is nonsense,

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Speaker 1: by the way, but it's a tradition where you think, well,

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Speaker 1: every time I act, I should be unrecognizable from part

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Speaker 1: to part. Where does that come from? That's the kind

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Speaker 1: of European you know, camouflage, chameleon, notion of Olivier putting

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Speaker 1: faint noses on and finding different voices and walks. It's nonsense.

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Speaker 1: It's not true. Your job has been the story to life.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't matter if you're the characters could have grown

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Speaker 1: up in the same block as some other characters you

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Speaker 1: played one time. But I I felt the struggle right

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Speaker 1: form the beginning of I don't want to be a

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Speaker 1: show off. I don't want people to look at me.

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Speaker 1: I don't want to do a job or a hobby,

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Speaker 1: which is about, you know, the kids standing on the

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Speaker 1: table doing the tap dance. So I always felt like

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Speaker 1: want of the stories when I started, the stories to

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Speaker 1: be so powerful that they grant people and they made

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Speaker 1: them phone a helpline or change their life, or treat

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Speaker 1: people differently, or questioned the lives. And that, of course,

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Speaker 1: isn't how a career works out. Plus that very thing

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Speaker 1: you just said, you don't get the opportunities to tell interesting,

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Speaker 1: good stories that you think you know put something great

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Speaker 1: in the world unless you have a profile, which means

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Speaker 1: unless you've got yourself a little bit famous, or finance

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Speaker 1: herbal which involves doing a bit of standing on the

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Speaker 1: table and tap dancing, which is so there's a kind

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Speaker 1: of playoff between the two. The simultaneous truth we each

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Speaker 1: truth is the opposite of the other. Is something confusing.

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Speaker 1: But it's interesting that you say that you didn't want

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Speaker 1: to be looked at, because that's how I feel now.

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Speaker 1: I really want the stories we tell to have eyeballs

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Speaker 1: on them, because I think that they make people think,

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Speaker 1: and I think they are the types of stories that

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Speaker 1: can make you smarter, kinder, perhaps more tolerant, perhaps more

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Speaker 1: willing to listen to another person. And yet when I

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Speaker 1: am not at work, my nightmare is to have my

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Speaker 1: picture taken my like, there's nothing more jarring than being

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Speaker 1: sort of stopped in the middle of doing something. I'm like, me,

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Speaker 1: what I want to, like, crawl back into my little hole.

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Speaker 1: I don't understand it. And people find that so funny

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Speaker 1: because they'll say to me, but you're on camera for

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Speaker 1: a living. I'm going yeah. But as someone else about

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Speaker 1: the fact that people think that public speaking, which is

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Speaker 1: most people's worst fear. They'd rather die than speaking public.

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Speaker 1: They think that actors should be able to do it,

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Speaker 1: whereas in fact, we're telling stories that other people have

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Speaker 1: written and were interpretive artists. They've created the world, and

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Speaker 1: other people aren't expected to be great. But I'm expected

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Speaker 1: to be great if I find it crippling, Lee, I'm

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Speaker 1: myself crippling, me self conscious if I'm just meant to

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Speaker 1: talk to a table of twelve people at my own

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Speaker 1: birthday party because I feel like it ought to be

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Speaker 1: a great speech. This is why you wanted me to

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Speaker 1: do your e PK with you the other day, isn't

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Speaker 1: it press? I find easy. That's you know, the only

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Speaker 1: thing that's hard for me. I've been doing it so

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Speaker 1: many decades onl than you. If someone asked me a

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Speaker 1: question to which there is a decent answer. It's just

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Speaker 1: normally a story that I've told a thousand times. And

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Speaker 1: if for whatever the you know, contingent of fans are

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Speaker 1: still sticking around, they're like, oh, not that again. No,

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Speaker 1: And he told it exactly the same way. I'm not

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Speaker 1: even sure if they're true anymore. They're just things I've

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Speaker 1: dusted off because they are the answers those questions, the

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Speaker 1: places you come from. That's that's actually the place I

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Speaker 1: normally like to start with people, Because you're right, there

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Speaker 1: are people who have been present in your career. There

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Speaker 1: are people who have found you through a variety of

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Speaker 1: avenues and performances and who follow what you're doing and

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Speaker 1: who are very excited about it. We we all at

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Speaker 1: work comment on this sort of magnificent in tensity of

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Speaker 1: the excitement of the Harry Potter fandom meeting the one

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Speaker 1: Tree Hill fandom in our in our show. And obviously

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Speaker 1: it's just one thing, but I am curious about where

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Speaker 1: it started. It's not lost on me that so many

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Speaker 1: people know you as a character from a film, from

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Speaker 1: a TV show, from a series of films. Maybe it's

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Speaker 1: a blockbuster, Maybe it's an independent. Maybe it's a fantasy,

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Speaker 1: but I always like to know who people were before,

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Speaker 1: and I really, I must say, perhaps with you more

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Speaker 1: than anyone. I'm very curious to hear your answer when

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Speaker 1: I ask you, I just because you know what it is.

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Speaker 1: We've done so much backstory about my character's childhood with you,

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Speaker 1: and granted that's make believe, but we've talked a lot

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Speaker 1: about each other's families. But you've talked to me a

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Speaker 1: lot about your experiences as a father. I've talked to

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Speaker 1: you a lot about my experiences as a daughter. I

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Speaker 1: don't know who you were when you were a little boy.

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Speaker 1: I don't know if there's a beautiful film called Petite

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Speaker 1: Mammal but we watched which is so gorgeous about little

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Speaker 1: girl getting to know her mom's a little girl when

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Speaker 1: he was listening. You should watch it. I don't you

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Speaker 1: know that I don't really know. I'm I grew up

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Speaker 1: in Liverpool and those people who have a really canny

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Speaker 1: here might be able to hear the odd vowel sound

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Speaker 1: buried under there, but I think only me come with

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Speaker 1: this a slightly different angle. So I've played lots of

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Speaker 1: real life people in my life quite a few soldiers

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Speaker 1: in black all down and other things, but also um whatever,

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Speaker 1: politicians and just the football is for various people, and

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Speaker 1: sometimes I've got to meet them, sometimes I haven't. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: I speak to them, and I've found it to be

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Speaker 1: the case that you get a much clearer, more honest,

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Speaker 1: emotional picture of the I don't know infrastructure or forced

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Speaker 1: the subterranean forces in people by talking to everyone else.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that anyone really knows themselves very well.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that people can describe themselves well. I'm

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Speaker 1: reasonably about articulate verbos. So you know, I can talk

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Speaker 1: about myself. Whether it's real, whether it's an accurate self

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Speaker 1: analysis or not, I don't know. It may be a

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Speaker 1: story I've told about myself to myself. Um So when

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Speaker 1: it comes to like how did you why are you

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Speaker 1: an actor? How did you get into acting? I have

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Speaker 1: this narrative of um, a little boy who never quite

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Speaker 1: felt comfortable, although other people who knew me saying I

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Speaker 1: seemed incredibly confidence. So I don't know that that's true.

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Speaker 1: But I was very self conscious and always managed to

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Speaker 1: fake being whatever I thought other people needed me to be.

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Speaker 1: So I was in lots of different crowds and that

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Speaker 1: that's something. I think it's called code switching nowadays, but

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Speaker 1: that didn't exist. But I was. I was from Liverpool,

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Speaker 1: and I was Jewish, and we moved to London, and

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Speaker 1: I was in a world that was neither of those things. Um,

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Speaker 1: I was in this kind of still Jewish suburban ghetto socially,

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Speaker 1: but I went to school that wasn't And then I

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Speaker 1: started skateboarding and skateboarding professionally when I was fourteen and fifteen,

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Speaker 1: and I would go to the South Bank where I

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Speaker 1: was one of the only white kids, and everybody was

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Speaker 1: very rough and from very different worlds, and I was

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Speaker 1: from and then eventually I went to university. All of

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Speaker 1: these places I had completely different subcultures, and I would

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Speaker 1: be whoever I thought that people I was mixing with

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Speaker 1: needed me to be. Vocally, it's a particularly British thing.

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Speaker 1: But you know, I'd changed my voice enormously. An accident

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Speaker 1: probably changed my character. I was probably acting all those years.

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Speaker 1: So I went to university, and you know, I'm not

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Speaker 1: starting a little. I remember this to be true. I

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Speaker 1: went to university. They all sounded like Hugh Grant to me,

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Speaker 1: or postiate Hugh grant you know that we're all family,

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Speaker 1: and they certainly seemed to me they all have the

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Speaker 1: same clothes, they mean, the same schools. And I wanted

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Speaker 1: to fit in with the people that I was mixing with,

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Speaker 1: and I tried to sound like them. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if I pulled it off or not. I went out

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Speaker 1: and bought second hand clothes to try and look a

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Speaker 1: bit like them. I'm sure I didn't pull any of

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Speaker 1: those things off. And a couple of weeks in drunk

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Speaker 1: because they said we all drank a lot, but I

358
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Speaker 1: used to drink and take a lot of drugs, and

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00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:03,239
Speaker 1: to many ways, I think it's an equalizer, like if

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Speaker 1: everybody's wasted, then there's nothing that separates anyway. I saw

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Speaker 1: a sign from an audition in the union building of

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Speaker 1: the university, and it said, can you do a Northern accent?

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Speaker 1: And the one thing that I've been hiding that I

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Speaker 1: definitely could do was a Liverpool accent. And I went

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Speaker 1: to an audition for this play and somebody cast me

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Speaker 1: into play, and I went to rehearsals whenever it was

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Speaker 1: the next day, and for the first time in maybe

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Speaker 1: my life, I felt completely relaxed about I didn't worry

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Speaker 1: about who I was outside the room when I was

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Speaker 1: pretending to be someone else. So when I was exploring

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Speaker 1: how human beings behaved, what makes them laugh, cry, shout hate?

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Speaker 1: You know it was a new play, and I had

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Speaker 1: the same thing you've seen rear its ugly head on set,

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Speaker 1: sometimes absolute certainty there was only one truth in a scene,

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Speaker 1: and that everybody had to see it, everybody had to

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Speaker 1: perform my way. I just I suddenly found this volcanic

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Speaker 1: passion for telling stories and exploring what human beings like.

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Speaker 1: So who I was and I was young, I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I I there are people who think that they knew

380
00:20:05,600 --> 00:20:07,959
Speaker 1: a version of me and don't recognize my own descriptions.

381
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Speaker 1: I think I was always inside my head. My inner

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00:20:11,200 --> 00:20:15,440
Speaker 1: dialogue was how are you so comfortable? How do other

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Speaker 1: people just seem to be easily themselves? And I probably

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Speaker 1: pulled off looking like that. One of the strangest things

385
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Speaker 1: that ever happens to me in my life is when

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Speaker 1: people tell me that I seem incredibly confident, powerful, like

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Speaker 1: I do it all because my experiences, I'm terrified all

388
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Speaker 1: the time. I wonder how everyone else is being so normal,

389
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Speaker 1: how they managed to have conversations and what are they

390
00:20:40,200 --> 00:20:43,320
Speaker 1: texting about? What do people text about? And I feel

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Speaker 1: like I don't do anything every day, like I haven't

392
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Speaker 1: done anything enormously. I want to say, not intimidated by

393
00:20:49,960 --> 00:20:52,600
Speaker 1: you because I'm so old. I feel like it's okay

394
00:20:52,960 --> 00:20:55,359
Speaker 1: that you're different. But I watch you just firing on

395
00:20:55,440 --> 00:20:57,920
Speaker 1: so many cylinders. The fact that you're doing it while

396
00:20:57,920 --> 00:21:01,280
Speaker 1: you're insecure or wondering if you're doing all great is

397
00:21:01,320 --> 00:21:03,119
Speaker 1: a tribute to the fact that you know. Courage is

398
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Speaker 1: not not being scared, it's being scared and doing it anyway.

399
00:21:05,440 --> 00:21:07,640
Speaker 1: So you're doing this podcast and you do another podcast

400
00:21:07,680 --> 00:21:11,040
Speaker 1: with your castmates, you work with us, and you're better

401
00:21:11,080 --> 00:21:14,040
Speaker 1: prepared than anybody else on the set, which is we

402
00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:18,280
Speaker 1: may get to have my deliberate anarchy of being unprepared. Um,

403
00:21:18,400 --> 00:21:22,800
Speaker 1: you have businesses, so you do achieve an enormous number

404
00:21:22,800 --> 00:21:25,760
Speaker 1: of things fantastically well. The fact that you don't think

405
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:28,000
Speaker 1: that you're great while you're doing them is what makes

406
00:21:28,000 --> 00:21:29,640
Speaker 1: you nice, because if you did think you were great

407
00:21:29,680 --> 00:21:31,640
Speaker 1: and that you were doing them are brilliantly would be obnoxious.

408
00:21:32,400 --> 00:21:35,760
Speaker 1: Maybe I would just like to be a little less stressed.

409
00:21:37,240 --> 00:21:39,359
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's you think you'd be less stressed if

410
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:41,000
Speaker 1: you did less. I'm not sure you would. It's not

411
00:21:41,080 --> 00:21:43,879
Speaker 1: that the doing less, it's that I wish I wasn't

412
00:21:45,320 --> 00:21:48,320
Speaker 1: the I don't know how to describe it other than

413
00:21:48,359 --> 00:21:51,400
Speaker 1: to say, you know, the moment before you fall, when

414
00:21:51,400 --> 00:21:54,040
Speaker 1: you trip and you go oga. I feel like that

415
00:21:54,160 --> 00:21:58,960
Speaker 1: all day, like oh, the floor is coming all day

416
00:21:59,280 --> 00:22:01,920
Speaker 1: and it would be really nice to you know, hear

417
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:03,840
Speaker 1: you make the list and go yeah, I do that

418
00:22:03,880 --> 00:22:06,040
Speaker 1: all day and I'm like, this is hilarious. I don't.

419
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Speaker 1: I don't know anybody who does as many things as

420
00:22:08,920 --> 00:22:11,800
Speaker 1: you do without feeling what you do. Everyone I know

421
00:22:11,840 --> 00:22:14,639
Speaker 1: who is driven to achieve in many different areas like

422
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:19,240
Speaker 1: you are. It's because of those feelings. That's why. That's

423
00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:21,560
Speaker 1: what makes people do that much. People who grow up

424
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:24,359
Speaker 1: and have a very easy, happy life and wonderful relationship

425
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:27,960
Speaker 1: their parents and siblings, they don't become performers, don't achieve

426
00:22:28,200 --> 00:22:31,120
Speaker 1: that much. They open a cake shop and they go

427
00:22:31,200 --> 00:22:32,719
Speaker 1: home and they have dinner, and they got to bed

428
00:22:32,720 --> 00:22:35,560
Speaker 1: at seven o'clock, and you know, they live contented lives

429
00:22:35,800 --> 00:22:38,040
Speaker 1: and they don't feel the need to achieve. I don't

430
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:42,000
Speaker 1: feel the need the drive in order to make their mark,

431
00:22:43,240 --> 00:22:45,560
Speaker 1: so you don't get one without the other. Yeah, so

432
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:49,000
Speaker 1: we just have to be slightly mack. Yeah. I mean,

433
00:22:49,080 --> 00:22:52,360
Speaker 1: I think I my coping mechanism for feeling like I

434
00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:55,400
Speaker 1: wanted something to be different. I've wanted to get out

435
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:58,280
Speaker 1: in the world and make reshape the world. So it

436
00:22:58,320 --> 00:23:00,440
Speaker 1: wasn't the one I was living in was to take

437
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:02,639
Speaker 1: a lot of drugs for twenty years. I was you know,

438
00:23:02,680 --> 00:23:04,520
Speaker 1: I took a lot of drugs for twenty years and

439
00:23:05,000 --> 00:23:07,439
Speaker 1: it really helped for a long time. It was fantastic

440
00:23:07,840 --> 00:23:10,920
Speaker 1: until it was awful and you know, and ruined my life,

441
00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:14,720
Speaker 1: and so um yours has been. I'm good. I'm going

442
00:23:14,720 --> 00:23:16,360
Speaker 1: to do things, and I'm going to do them well,

443
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 1: and I'm going to keep doing them, and I'm gonna

444
00:23:18,160 --> 00:23:22,920
Speaker 1: keep opening pushing open new doors. It's fantastic to watch.

445
00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,000
Speaker 1: I love watching you do it. Sorry, I know it's

446
00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:27,600
Speaker 1: sickening pretty one listening. It is true. I love that,

447
00:23:27,920 --> 00:23:29,920
Speaker 1: you know. It just struck me as you said that

448
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:34,800
Speaker 1: that I think you and I both are relentless, and

449
00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:37,680
Speaker 1: each of us has had to figure out where our

450
00:23:37,840 --> 00:23:42,640
Speaker 1: willingness or are inability not to be relentless is useful

451
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:47,480
Speaker 1: versus harmful. Yes, that's true. You put yours into much

452
00:23:47,520 --> 00:23:51,400
Speaker 1: more constructive things. I find myself obsessed with because I've

453
00:23:51,400 --> 00:23:53,400
Speaker 1: only done the one thing, you know, acting a little

454
00:23:53,400 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 1: bit of producing, some writing stuff and maybe some directing

455
00:23:56,040 --> 00:23:59,959
Speaker 1: coming up. But but I mostly because I've done this

456
00:24:00,040 --> 00:24:04,600
Speaker 1: single thing. I find myself obsessed with moments, even long

457
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:09,159
Speaker 1: after I've filmed them or been on stage just uncovering.

458
00:24:09,280 --> 00:24:12,359
Speaker 1: It's like I don't know, it's like a sketch or something.

459
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:14,760
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, or a piece of sculpture. I

460
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:17,199
Speaker 1: just it's never quite right and I and it stays

461
00:24:17,200 --> 00:24:19,280
Speaker 1: in my head. These moments stay in my head, and

462
00:24:19,320 --> 00:24:21,520
Speaker 1: the writing stays in my head. I think, you know,

463
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:24,400
Speaker 1: I can't. I sometimes, as you know, I get obsessed

464
00:24:24,440 --> 00:24:26,040
Speaker 1: with I want to turn a phrase around, I want

465
00:24:26,320 --> 00:24:28,520
Speaker 1: and there. We have a magnificent writer on our show,

466
00:24:28,560 --> 00:24:31,960
Speaker 1: and she's God. I've never worked for anybody who has

467
00:24:32,000 --> 00:24:35,680
Speaker 1: as open and collaborative. But I still get like a

468
00:24:35,720 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: six year old in my head, like you know, tears

469
00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:38,560
Speaker 1: well up in my eyes. I go, I want to

470
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:41,400
Speaker 1: say this instead of this. She lets us anyway, because

471
00:24:41,400 --> 00:24:43,800
Speaker 1: she's great. If it doesn't ruin things. But I, um,

472
00:24:44,640 --> 00:24:48,080
Speaker 1: I have a I have an obsessive drive. You're right,

473
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:50,520
Speaker 1: and I've channeled it into a single thing. You've channeled

474
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:53,560
Speaker 1: into twenty things, which is probably much healthier. I don't

475
00:24:53,560 --> 00:24:55,480
Speaker 1: know that it is, because it's probably why I feel

476
00:24:55,480 --> 00:24:59,640
Speaker 1: like I'm I have this sort of sense that I'm

477
00:24:59,720 --> 00:25:02,919
Speaker 1: k of a lot of things, but not really phenomenal

478
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,159
Speaker 1: at anything. That's how I feel. That might not be

479
00:25:06,200 --> 00:25:09,520
Speaker 1: what you'd say to me. Yeah, but who are these

480
00:25:09,520 --> 00:25:14,240
Speaker 1: people who think they're great when you and me but

481
00:25:14,320 --> 00:25:17,360
Speaker 1: also they're awful? But in the arts or in any

482
00:25:17,359 --> 00:25:19,760
Speaker 1: other field, it should be walking around saying I mean,

483
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: it's very English thing to think. That's very Australian as well. Oddly,

484
00:25:22,240 --> 00:25:24,720
Speaker 1: the whole tall puppy thing, no one should go I'm wonderful,

485
00:25:24,760 --> 00:25:26,560
Speaker 1: I'm great. Look at this thing I've done, Isn't it?

486
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:30,080
Speaker 1: Isn't it? I don't think it's about the the version

487
00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,879
Speaker 1: of that that's rooted in conceit though. I think I

488
00:25:32,920 --> 00:25:37,359
Speaker 1: think it's about um for me, because conceited people, I

489
00:25:37,400 --> 00:25:39,760
Speaker 1: just want to kick in the shin, just like a

490
00:25:39,840 --> 00:25:43,879
Speaker 1: swift kick with like a pointy mule, you know. Um,

491
00:25:43,920 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 1: But I see people who are beautifully confident, and I

492
00:25:50,760 --> 00:25:53,479
Speaker 1: think to myself, what must that feel like? Yeah, you know,

493
00:25:53,840 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: and and and I usually be easy at night without

494
00:25:56,320 --> 00:25:58,720
Speaker 1: worrying at all that they that they may or may

495
00:25:58,720 --> 00:26:00,640
Speaker 1: not have done things. Well, yeah, I mean, you talk

496
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:04,919
Speaker 1: about old jobs. I made this movie the summer that

497
00:26:04,960 --> 00:26:07,520
Speaker 1: I turned twenty three, and like the last week we

498
00:26:07,520 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 1: were on the movie, things really devolved with the director.

499
00:26:10,080 --> 00:26:12,159
Speaker 1: It was his first feature. The producers, they were like

500
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:14,200
Speaker 1: screaming at each other all the time. I was so

501
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:18,840
Speaker 1: scared and nervous that it really took me out of

502
00:26:18,880 --> 00:26:22,320
Speaker 1: my head in terms of being able to focus. In

503
00:26:22,359 --> 00:26:24,080
Speaker 1: the last week we were shooting the end of the movie,

504
00:26:24,440 --> 00:26:28,800
Speaker 1: I'm haunted by choices I wish i'd made. And people

505
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:31,400
Speaker 1: are like, I loved that movie, and I'm like, well

506
00:26:31,480 --> 00:26:33,199
Speaker 1: just check cut me out of it, and they're like,

507
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:35,840
Speaker 1: we can't. You were the lead of the movie. But

508
00:26:35,920 --> 00:26:38,840
Speaker 1: it makes me crazy. And it doesn't mean it's real.

509
00:26:40,160 --> 00:26:42,960
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean but it doesn't mean you know, that's

510
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:47,280
Speaker 1: that's the life of an artist. Pretentious thing, but it

511
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:51,480
Speaker 1: is true. Nonetheless, I love that yourself deprecating and you

512
00:26:51,520 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: call it pretentious, but I do. I do think it

513
00:26:54,200 --> 00:26:57,600
Speaker 1: is very universal. I think a lot of people experience that.

514
00:26:58,000 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 1: And I'm curious about the ways we channel things, because

515
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:07,040
Speaker 1: I know what it's been two not channel my sort

516
00:27:07,080 --> 00:27:13,840
Speaker 1: of relentlessness into healthy zones like to you know, being

517
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:17,680
Speaker 1: fixer upper relationships where I'm determined that I'm the one

518
00:27:17,720 --> 00:27:21,840
Speaker 1: who sees it differently. In nonsense, that's, you know, terribly

519
00:27:21,840 --> 00:27:25,600
Speaker 1: common for too many wonderful women. But when you talk

520
00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:31,400
Speaker 1: about your history and and I so admire the way

521
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:33,879
Speaker 1: that you talk about sobriety, in the way that you

522
00:27:33,920 --> 00:27:36,920
Speaker 1: show up for people, I am curious, if you don't

523
00:27:36,920 --> 00:27:42,520
Speaker 1: mind telling me about it, how do you go from

524
00:27:42,520 --> 00:27:46,560
Speaker 1: as you said this, you know, close knit Jewish community.

525
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:52,640
Speaker 1: You've you've described yourself as a person who is profoundly Jewish,

526
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,119
Speaker 1: but not in a religious way. You're your spiritual You

527
00:27:56,400 --> 00:27:58,960
Speaker 1: think that was probably in an interview with the Jewish newspaper.

528
00:27:59,320 --> 00:28:02,120
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe really not. I think I grew up

529
00:28:02,359 --> 00:28:04,960
Speaker 1: doing all of it. You can't separate the religious from

530
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:09,200
Speaker 1: the cultural. So I grew up heavily steeped in everything,

531
00:28:09,600 --> 00:28:12,639
Speaker 1: and then I walked completely away from it. And you know,

532
00:28:12,680 --> 00:28:14,360
Speaker 1: I missed the songs. I know all the song why

533
00:28:14,480 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 1: was it because I went to I grew up, my

534
00:28:17,080 --> 00:28:20,200
Speaker 1: parents grew up in the forties, you know, And then

535
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:22,919
Speaker 1: and then they were teenagers when the war ended and

536
00:28:22,920 --> 00:28:25,800
Speaker 1: the Holocaust was revealed to them, and they experienced much

537
00:28:25,800 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 1: worse anti Semitism, I'm sure than I ever have. And

538
00:28:28,640 --> 00:28:31,080
Speaker 1: and so they had a siege mentality that this notion

539
00:28:31,119 --> 00:28:32,800
Speaker 1: that everyone was out to get the Jews, and at

540
00:28:32,800 --> 00:28:35,359
Speaker 1: any point someone would turn on you can really trust

541
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:37,639
Speaker 1: anyone at some point would be kicked out of England

542
00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:41,040
Speaker 1: or whatever, and you're temporary business um. And I inherited

543
00:28:41,120 --> 00:28:44,520
Speaker 1: quite a lot of that until I started having friends

544
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: and lovers and partners and children who are not That's

545
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:52,040
Speaker 1: just not my life, that was theirs. And so I'm

546
00:28:52,080 --> 00:28:54,800
Speaker 1: I'm very Jewish in the sense that the world will

547
00:28:54,880 --> 00:28:56,920
Speaker 1: never let me forget that that's who my background was,

548
00:28:56,920 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: and that there are many people in the world still

549
00:28:58,960 --> 00:29:00,760
Speaker 1: who would kill me or bring me up or burn

550
00:29:00,840 --> 00:29:07,040
Speaker 1: me for because of my heritage. So I'm so somehow

551
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:10,040
Speaker 1: to turn my back on it and say, well, that's

552
00:29:10,040 --> 00:29:12,200
Speaker 1: just not me, it's not who I am, knowing full

553
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:14,400
Speaker 1: well that it defines me in so many other people's eyes.

554
00:29:14,800 --> 00:29:18,800
Speaker 1: Seems like an abdication of responsibility maybe, And the other

555
00:29:18,840 --> 00:29:22,200
Speaker 1: thing is really very trivial. I remember the songs, I

556
00:29:22,200 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 1: can read. I can read the language, like you know,

557
00:29:24,320 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 1: I'm so steeped, and I spent so many years and

558
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:30,600
Speaker 1: I love just like people love Christmas trees or people

559
00:29:30,640 --> 00:29:33,320
Speaker 1: love Easter bunnies or whatever. You know. I love all

560
00:29:33,360 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 1: the food stuff that I loved, all the rituals. But

561
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:37,280
Speaker 1: I have an on Jewish wife, I have not just children.

562
00:29:37,880 --> 00:29:40,239
Speaker 1: We don't do any of those things. And so I

563
00:29:40,280 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 1: guess it will fade with me. And so um, when

564
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:46,800
Speaker 1: I said I'm profoundly Jewish, what I meant was I'm

565
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:49,040
Speaker 1: never allowed to forget. And I don't forget because it

566
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 1: feels like walking away from a fight that I'm in.

567
00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: Part of I don't believe in God, for instance, I

568
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 1: even get offenders the wrong world, but I stupidly do

569
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: that thing. Uh of always wanted to bring up faith, abortion, taxes,

570
00:30:05,600 --> 00:30:09,040
Speaker 1: whatever is most difficult in any conversation. That's what I

571
00:30:09,040 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: want to talk about. And God is always at the

572
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:12,880
Speaker 1: health of things. Yeah, I think that's why, you know,

573
00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:16,520
Speaker 1: because I come from a very blended family, were a

574
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: bunch of Catholics and Jews and Agnostics and you know,

575
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,600
Speaker 1: a couple of atheists mixed in there, and so it

576
00:30:23,720 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: led me down this path growing up with both, you know,

577
00:30:27,280 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 1: practices of religious traditions. As a kid, I was like,

578
00:30:32,080 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 1: but I don't understand they basically say the same thing.

579
00:30:36,080 --> 00:30:39,000
Speaker 1: Like my analogy when I was young was Okay, your

580
00:30:39,040 --> 00:30:41,640
Speaker 1: sweaters are different colors, but you're both wearing sweaters. Why

581
00:30:41,640 --> 00:30:43,760
Speaker 1: are we arguing about sweat? Like this is so stupid?

582
00:30:44,280 --> 00:30:47,120
Speaker 1: And it it led me to study Eastern philosophy, and

583
00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:50,520
Speaker 1: I spent my whole senior year in high school studying Islam.

584
00:30:50,560 --> 00:30:54,160
Speaker 1: I really wanted to understand what is the root of

585
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:57,400
Speaker 1: belief for people? And why don't we see that most

586
00:30:57,440 --> 00:31:00,480
Speaker 1: of our belief is much more similar than different. That's

587
00:31:00,560 --> 00:31:03,240
Speaker 1: something that fascinates me so much. I might actually be

588
00:31:03,320 --> 00:31:06,760
Speaker 1: making in television serious about beliefs coming up soon, because

589
00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,360
Speaker 1: I know it's not really possible, but because of what

590
00:31:10,400 --> 00:31:12,400
Speaker 1: we do for a living, and because you know, who

591
00:31:12,400 --> 00:31:15,400
Speaker 1: knows what stories we tell next. I kind of think

592
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:18,240
Speaker 1: of myself as a pretty blank vessel. And I studied

593
00:31:18,320 --> 00:31:22,200
Speaker 1: law originally partly, I think because I can see all

594
00:31:22,280 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 1: sides of everything, and you know, people sometimes ask me

595
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,480
Speaker 1: why do you play all these antagonists or villains, and

596
00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:30,520
Speaker 1: I go, well, I try not to take the part

597
00:31:30,600 --> 00:31:33,120
Speaker 1: unless I recognize a human being in it. You know,

598
00:31:33,680 --> 00:31:36,600
Speaker 1: Lucy's mouth boy being maybe the most high profile. He's

599
00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:38,880
Speaker 1: a racist, he's an area and then it's not very

600
00:31:38,880 --> 00:31:41,800
Speaker 1: it's thinly disguised. He's a guy that thinks the world

601
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:43,520
Speaker 1: was better when people like he ruled it, and that

602
00:31:43,640 --> 00:31:46,400
Speaker 1: mixed blood is an offense against some kind of you know,

603
00:31:46,440 --> 00:31:49,600
Speaker 1: eugenic purity and stuff. And you know it's not far

604
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:53,160
Speaker 1: fetched or magical. Um those people. There are people elected

605
00:31:53,240 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 1: that seats all over Europe and the White House for

606
00:31:55,760 --> 00:31:58,680
Speaker 1: a while who believes in those things. Um anyway, So

607
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:01,600
Speaker 1: that the more general point is that I feel like

608
00:32:02,240 --> 00:32:05,720
Speaker 1: I'm blank, or I can be blank. I can see

609
00:32:06,000 --> 00:32:09,960
Speaker 1: how anybody could believe anything given their context, given what

610
00:32:10,000 --> 00:32:12,520
Speaker 1: they're listening to, who they're listening to, what era they

611
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:14,719
Speaker 1: grow up in, what the mores of the society they

612
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: live in is. And that's partly if we tell the truth,

613
00:32:18,720 --> 00:32:24,280
Speaker 1: if we play characters truthfully without judging them, then people

614
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:27,600
Speaker 1: will recognize that. People will go you know, people if

615
00:32:27,600 --> 00:32:30,680
Speaker 1: not recognize themselves in the character recognize that as a

616
00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: truth about humankind, which is which leads to them understanding

617
00:32:34,920 --> 00:32:37,640
Speaker 1: each other a bit more. Possibly. I don't know if

618
00:32:37,680 --> 00:32:40,400
Speaker 1: that's a it's a lofty goal, but I think if

619
00:32:40,400 --> 00:32:42,200
Speaker 1: we just told the mirror up to nature, you know,

620
00:32:43,320 --> 00:32:46,200
Speaker 1: you get something as a viewer, even in you know,

621
00:32:46,200 --> 00:32:49,040
Speaker 1: we're making essentially lighthearted entertainment at the moment. You know,

622
00:32:49,800 --> 00:32:53,480
Speaker 1: a medical show has high stakes, has tears, has laughter. Um,

623
00:32:54,120 --> 00:32:56,120
Speaker 1: but if we can do things truthfully, if we can

624
00:32:56,160 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: find moments of truth, it makes people feel I think

625
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: I hope it makes people feel slightly less alone and

626
00:33:04,440 --> 00:33:10,360
Speaker 1: that their own kind of inner dialogue is not unique. Yeah. Yeah,

627
00:33:10,400 --> 00:33:12,960
Speaker 1: I mean I would gone into that from God because

628
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: I can see why people believe in it and want

629
00:33:14,560 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: to believe in it. When I grew up, I was

630
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:20,280
Speaker 1: told very early on I saw those images I was

631
00:33:20,320 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 1: taking to other sharem interditionally, So you know, I've seen

632
00:33:22,520 --> 00:33:24,680
Speaker 1: mountains of corpses. They meant nothing to me. They didn't

633
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,120
Speaker 1: look like people that certainly weren't me. They weren't related

634
00:33:27,160 --> 00:33:30,200
Speaker 1: to me. But I was told all about the Holocaust

635
00:33:30,280 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 1: and everybody at some point it was going to kick

636
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:34,280
Speaker 1: the Jews out, kill them at the same time, we

637
00:33:34,400 --> 00:33:38,240
Speaker 1: were telling stories a passover of this giant bearded creature

638
00:33:38,240 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: in the sky that reached down and smoked Egyptians with

639
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:44,200
Speaker 1: all these plagues. And and it's true of Islam, minis

640
00:33:44,200 --> 00:33:46,440
Speaker 1: true of Christianity and Judaism, that there is this God

641
00:33:46,800 --> 00:33:49,280
Speaker 1: that if you appeal at the right time, in the

642
00:33:49,360 --> 00:33:53,080
Speaker 1: right words, maybe every Sunday, every Saturday, we'll lean down

643
00:33:53,120 --> 00:33:55,600
Speaker 1: and help you. And I was growing up thinking, well,

644
00:33:55,640 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 1: where the funk was he? And as I began to

645
00:33:58,200 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: read newspapers ago, where is he now? Where is he

646
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: when a consonant is blighted with childhood cancer or AIDS

647
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,799
Speaker 1: or the Armenian genocide or anything like, where is this

648
00:34:08,880 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: interventionist God? And people go, well, it's about free will,

649
00:34:12,160 --> 00:34:14,319
Speaker 1: and you go, but that's not the stories you're telling

650
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:18,239
Speaker 1: pretty will. So for me, there's such an inherent contradiction

651
00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:22,040
Speaker 1: in all those monotheistic religions. I just I don't understand it,

652
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:27,439
Speaker 1: but I but my somehow, my mission um as a

653
00:34:27,480 --> 00:34:31,359
Speaker 1: storyteller is to be able to understand how anybody can

654
00:34:31,440 --> 00:34:34,279
Speaker 1: believe anything and become anyone. The best way I've ever

655
00:34:34,320 --> 00:34:38,040
Speaker 1: made sense of it comes back to story because for

656
00:34:38,120 --> 00:34:42,840
Speaker 1: me my personal belief, having grown up with so many

657
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 1: books about so many faiths in my space and seeking

658
00:34:47,160 --> 00:34:53,200
Speaker 1: out more, is simply that the you know, bearded guy

659
00:34:53,239 --> 00:34:55,120
Speaker 1: in the sky, I mean the irony that we would

660
00:34:55,120 --> 00:34:57,480
Speaker 1: think that a god, that god could be gendered. But anyway,

661
00:34:57,760 --> 00:34:59,520
Speaker 1: we're sitting in a chair like what are we doing?

662
00:35:00,719 --> 00:35:02,720
Speaker 1: The best way I know to make sense of it

663
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:07,480
Speaker 1: for me is all of these stories are metaphors about

664
00:35:07,560 --> 00:35:11,479
Speaker 1: the way humans can treat each other. We can be vile,

665
00:35:11,600 --> 00:35:16,720
Speaker 1: we can be cruel, we can be homicidal, genocidal, violent,

666
00:35:17,840 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 1: But at our best we serve, we save, we show up,

667
00:35:22,080 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: we give. And who do we want to be? Do

668
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:32,800
Speaker 1: we want to be more faithful or more vicious? Pick?

669
00:35:33,400 --> 00:35:35,479
Speaker 1: And the idea is that every day you can pick

670
00:35:35,600 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: to be better. And aside from that idea, I don't

671
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,759
Speaker 1: really have time for people arguing about it. That's the

672
00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:44,880
Speaker 1: only sweater I want to wear. No I complete with you.

673
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:48,759
Speaker 1: That's the uh. That's so much of what things have

674
00:35:48,840 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: crystallized for me in the last few years is um

675
00:35:52,560 --> 00:35:54,680
Speaker 1: despite what it might look like if you read my

676
00:35:55,120 --> 00:35:57,960
Speaker 1: Twitter rents when trumpet in power? Is what can I

677
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:00,799
Speaker 1: affect and how can I affect. I can act other

678
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,880
Speaker 1: people around me by being gracious and by trying to

679
00:36:04,920 --> 00:36:08,440
Speaker 1: act out of generosity and love and not trying to

680
00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:11,640
Speaker 1: make other people feel worse to myself feel better. And

681
00:36:11,760 --> 00:36:14,080
Speaker 1: where can I make a difference, And where can I not?

682
00:36:14,120 --> 00:36:16,760
Speaker 1: If I can't make a difference, don't let it occupy

683
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,240
Speaker 1: real estate in my head, because it's just rotting stuff

684
00:36:19,239 --> 00:36:20,719
Speaker 1: in there. But that's I think why you have to

685
00:36:20,800 --> 00:36:24,120
Speaker 1: round sometimes, and that actually being rooted in that kind

686
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:27,279
Speaker 1: of love and showing up for people is why I

687
00:36:27,320 --> 00:36:29,399
Speaker 1: can speak for myself here why I fought so hard

688
00:36:29,440 --> 00:36:32,560
Speaker 1: against Trump, because to watch a man in modern times

689
00:36:33,239 --> 00:36:36,839
Speaker 1: literally copy Hitler's playbook and then have people say that's

690
00:36:36,840 --> 00:36:40,680
Speaker 1: not what he's doing. Oh no, no, the smart enough

691
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:43,600
Speaker 1: deliberately to plagiarize. I think it's an instant, an ugly

692
00:36:43,640 --> 00:36:48,160
Speaker 1: instinct in all of those plutocrats that that they recognize

693
00:36:48,520 --> 00:36:51,880
Speaker 1: in all human nature. Is this is an instinct you

694
00:36:51,880 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 1: can play into, which is to tell people if their

695
00:36:54,680 --> 00:36:58,319
Speaker 1: life isn't perfect, then it's not their fault. It's and

696
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 1: then fill in the blank and it could be Mexicans, Jews, women,

697
00:37:01,600 --> 00:37:04,160
Speaker 1: gay people, immigrants, but it doesn't matter what it is

698
00:37:04,400 --> 00:37:06,840
Speaker 1: if your life isn't perfect. And I think there was

699
00:37:06,880 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 1: a tribal instinct and has been throughout time that we

700
00:37:10,640 --> 00:37:14,279
Speaker 1: have to continually monitor. You know, the catchphrase whatever, it

701
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:17,360
Speaker 1: is not catchphrase wrong where, but the tagline for Holocaust

702
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:21,279
Speaker 1: memorial days always never forget. And it bothers me. Not

703
00:37:21,360 --> 00:37:25,000
Speaker 1: that it's the wrong tagline, but it it makes people

704
00:37:25,560 --> 00:37:27,880
Speaker 1: think they're being told never to forget these piles of

705
00:37:27,920 --> 00:37:30,400
Speaker 1: corpses and the crematory and stuff. It's not that I

706
00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:33,200
Speaker 1: don't think that's useful. And and sometimes I hear that

707
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:36,040
Speaker 1: complaint the Jews want special treatment. So you know, the

708
00:37:36,080 --> 00:37:38,200
Speaker 1: Holocaust comes up. There's too many films about it, too

709
00:37:38,239 --> 00:37:41,240
Speaker 1: many documentaries about it. Actually, the only reason to revisit

710
00:37:41,280 --> 00:37:43,440
Speaker 1: is not to remember the dead, although they should be honored,

711
00:37:43,480 --> 00:37:46,759
Speaker 1: all dead should be. It's to never forget how it

712
00:37:46,880 --> 00:37:49,400
Speaker 1: starts and to never do it again. Well, yeah, but

713
00:37:50,200 --> 00:37:53,359
Speaker 1: if you tell people don't become murderous, genocidal monsters. It's

714
00:37:53,360 --> 00:37:56,320
Speaker 1: easy if you go, but just remember how it started.

715
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: It starts with othering, it starts with going. Those people

716
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,719
Speaker 1: aren't quite like you, believing any tropes, believing any cliches

717
00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: about any particular group of people in my life. At

718
00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:09,319
Speaker 1: the moment, I sometimes have things to do with the

719
00:38:09,320 --> 00:38:12,240
Speaker 1: Red Cross. It's great privilege to be around silent seekers

720
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:16,520
Speaker 1: and refugees. Britain has a minute, minute percentage of the

721
00:38:16,560 --> 00:38:19,680
Speaker 1: number of people who displaced in the world. But the

722
00:38:20,120 --> 00:38:22,920
Speaker 1: ridiculous lies that are spread about them, the notion that

723
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:26,160
Speaker 1: people have, even my liberal for proggressive friends, thinking they

724
00:38:26,200 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: know who these people are and what they've been through

725
00:38:28,320 --> 00:38:30,359
Speaker 1: and what they want at the country have arrived at.

726
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 1: And it's it starts by going, you know, well, if

727
00:38:34,680 --> 00:38:36,360
Speaker 1: people aren't looking for a job, then we need to

728
00:38:36,360 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: cut them off from welfare. We're not rich enough. Actually

729
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:41,120
Speaker 1: we're perfectly rich enough to have a safety net that

730
00:38:41,160 --> 00:38:46,960
Speaker 1: catches everyone. Have more than enough money. And yeah, and

731
00:38:47,000 --> 00:38:49,960
Speaker 1: that refugees have come the economic opportunities that have come

732
00:38:50,000 --> 00:38:52,360
Speaker 1: in just to send money back. And I've met numbers

733
00:38:52,400 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 1: of people who have been kept as sex slaves in Yemen,

734
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,800
Speaker 1: who watched their family drown, who have you know, to

735
00:38:59,000 --> 00:39:01,279
Speaker 1: risk their life to get on a floating piece of

736
00:39:01,320 --> 00:39:03,640
Speaker 1: cardboard to come across the channel because they had an

737
00:39:03,719 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 1: uncle who speaks English, who's in England, and that's the

738
00:39:06,040 --> 00:39:08,319
Speaker 1: only place that might seem safe because their families are dead.

739
00:39:08,640 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 1: And it's extraordinary the myths that are perpetuated. So for me,

740
00:39:12,080 --> 00:39:14,400
Speaker 1: never forget. It's never forget how it starts. It starts

741
00:39:14,440 --> 00:39:16,239
Speaker 1: with jokes, it starts with mother ing, it starts with

742
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:19,239
Speaker 1: thinking they're not quite like me. You know, there's a

743
00:39:19,239 --> 00:39:22,480
Speaker 1: country that that we haven't given vaccines to India or

744
00:39:22,480 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 1: to various other countries, but they don't regard death in

745
00:39:25,040 --> 00:39:28,280
Speaker 1: the same way. I've heard that they don't regard actually

746
00:39:28,280 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: heard it from a very prominent Indian person when I

747
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:32,680
Speaker 1: was shooting there. I said, God, it's so shocking being here.

748
00:39:33,080 --> 00:39:36,080
Speaker 1: I've never seen, and I've read about and I prepared myself,

749
00:39:36,120 --> 00:39:40,000
Speaker 1: but actually to witness poverty and starvation on this level

750
00:39:40,040 --> 00:39:41,880
Speaker 1: of places that I've been. You said, but you have

751
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:45,080
Speaker 1: to understand, Jason, people view death differently here. And I

752
00:39:45,120 --> 00:39:48,240
Speaker 1: was thinking, no, I don't believe you. I don't believe

753
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:50,839
Speaker 1: that those people I passed today, who I'm sure of

754
00:39:50,880 --> 00:39:54,400
Speaker 1: starving and dying, view death differently from the way you do. Um.

755
00:39:54,440 --> 00:39:56,879
Speaker 1: So it's that that never forget for me is never.

756
00:39:57,040 --> 00:40:01,080
Speaker 1: We must police ourselves continually. How it's dolts, not how

757
00:40:01,120 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: it ends. I think that's what was hardest about, you know,

758
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:09,000
Speaker 1: the last five years for me is to watch the

759
00:40:09,040 --> 00:40:16,560
Speaker 1: swift uptick in the glee at dehumanizing other people. Absolutely,

760
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:20,920
Speaker 1: and I worry about what happens to us when we

761
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:25,600
Speaker 1: don't view each other as neighbors. You know. I I

762
00:40:25,600 --> 00:40:30,800
Speaker 1: am a staunch defender of justice, and I'm pretty willing

763
00:40:30,920 --> 00:40:34,680
Speaker 1: to sit down with almost anyone and hear their perspective.

764
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,480
Speaker 1: Because what I've found in traveling all over the country

765
00:40:37,480 --> 00:40:39,640
Speaker 1: and all over the world and moving to towns and

766
00:40:39,680 --> 00:40:43,600
Speaker 1: cities and places, is that even people who don't think

767
00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:45,399
Speaker 1: they'll have anything in common with me if we share

768
00:40:45,400 --> 00:40:48,520
Speaker 1: a meal, by the end of it, we're friends. And

769
00:40:48,560 --> 00:40:51,400
Speaker 1: a lot of the hatred and blame it comes from ignorance,

770
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: lack of contact, lack of exposure, you know, why not

771
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:57,040
Speaker 1: about you. But sometimes when I was and I backed

772
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:00,480
Speaker 1: off from it completely, when I was hysterically rapid political,

773
00:41:00,520 --> 00:41:03,640
Speaker 1: when Trump was in and using blame as weaponizing blame

774
00:41:03,760 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 1: or hatred all the time, I would look at some

775
00:41:06,120 --> 00:41:10,600
Speaker 1: of the outpouring of violence, you know, murderous hatred towards

776
00:41:10,600 --> 00:41:13,200
Speaker 1: me for saying and I'd click on those people's timelines

777
00:41:13,840 --> 00:41:17,120
Speaker 1: and I'd read where who they were talking to, they

778
00:41:17,120 --> 00:41:19,480
Speaker 1: were listening to. And I think, you know, if I

779
00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,440
Speaker 1: only had these sources of information, I would think the

780
00:41:22,440 --> 00:41:26,400
Speaker 1: same as you did. You know, and you know, and

781
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:29,760
Speaker 1: you have to question, you will, are my sources as valid?

782
00:41:30,000 --> 00:41:32,520
Speaker 1: Who am I thinking that the media that is so

783
00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:35,719
Speaker 1: introduced by Trump and everyone else, that lamestream media, maybe

784
00:41:35,719 --> 00:41:39,320
Speaker 1: they're aligned to me, but actually they have journalistic standards.

785
00:41:39,880 --> 00:41:42,680
Speaker 1: I mean America more so than Britain, certainly printed press,

786
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:45,799
Speaker 1: you've have three independent sources of cooperation exactly. I mean,

787
00:41:45,800 --> 00:41:48,600
Speaker 1: there are objective standards that just aren't adhered to elsewhere.

788
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 1: My friend Stephanie teaches community college in Oklahoma, and one

789
00:41:52,239 --> 00:41:54,359
Speaker 1: of the things she teaches is trying to get her

790
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:59,000
Speaker 1: students to find what verifiable, reliable sources are before their

791
00:41:59,000 --> 00:42:02,400
Speaker 1: form opinions and when they're writing, and it's very difficult.

792
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:07,040
Speaker 1: They can't even agree often on one of verifiable sources. Well,

793
00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:10,239
Speaker 1: and I think it can be very hard to even

794
00:42:10,280 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: imagine that there are entire troll farms, you know, funded

795
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:20,320
Speaker 1: by dark money, that literally spend all day making disinformation

796
00:42:20,400 --> 00:42:23,600
Speaker 1: look like real news. You know, we we don't do that.

797
00:42:23,680 --> 00:42:26,200
Speaker 1: You and I don't do that all day. Most people

798
00:42:26,480 --> 00:42:30,719
Speaker 1: can't imagine that that's real. So when something looks real,

799
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: they think it is real. We're we're in a new

800
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:35,680
Speaker 1: kind of battle that I think a lot of people.

801
00:42:36,440 --> 00:42:38,279
Speaker 1: But you never win a battle with someone who thinks

802
00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:40,360
Speaker 1: something by turning them their wrong. And there lie the

803
00:42:40,400 --> 00:42:42,920
Speaker 1: only way. And it's impossible. I was talking about it

804
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:45,840
Speaker 1: before these reason Mike one could someone I was talking

805
00:42:45,840 --> 00:42:48,480
Speaker 1: to a Hollywood mogul the other day going listen, you

806
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:51,160
Speaker 1: have all these have all these people that you can influence,

807
00:42:51,200 --> 00:42:54,719
Speaker 1: you tell these stories on a gigantic scale. Can you

808
00:42:54,880 --> 00:42:59,840
Speaker 1: use your smarts and contacts to establish a neutral source

809
00:42:59,880 --> 00:43:02,360
Speaker 1: of fact so that everybody, whatever side of any political

810
00:43:02,440 --> 00:43:05,680
Speaker 1: special they sit on, go, well that's a fact. Let's

811
00:43:05,680 --> 00:43:08,120
Speaker 1: start joining And he went, no, of course I can't.

812
00:43:08,920 --> 00:43:12,120
Speaker 1: That's impossible. But that's that's the biggest task facing us,

813
00:43:12,320 --> 00:43:15,840
Speaker 1: whether it's on climate change or immigration or anything in

814
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:20,600
Speaker 1: the world. What's a fact? Yeah, it's crazy how they

815
00:43:20,640 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 1: go this was there a question? Well, we started I

816
00:43:23,960 --> 00:43:25,960
Speaker 1: feel like I'm on a soa. We started way back

817
00:43:26,680 --> 00:43:29,680
Speaker 1: at the beginning of our tangent talking about you know,

818
00:43:29,719 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 1: sort of growing up and identity and I guess I

819
00:43:33,840 --> 00:43:37,359
Speaker 1: My my curiosity, um, was to dig a little more

820
00:43:37,480 --> 00:43:40,680
Speaker 1: into you know, the community that you grew up in

821
00:43:40,880 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: Liverpool versus when you moved to London and you began

822
00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:50,440
Speaker 1: having your sort of chameleon multiple personalities in various different places.

823
00:43:50,560 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I wouldn't they were, they really were. But

824
00:43:53,080 --> 00:43:55,880
Speaker 1: but to your point about being a performer, you you

825
00:43:55,960 --> 00:44:00,600
Speaker 1: had your sort of chameleon stage where you experienced all

826
00:44:00,600 --> 00:44:02,080
Speaker 1: of these things with all of these groups, and you

827
00:44:02,120 --> 00:44:07,640
Speaker 1: talked about college and that sort of bizarre world that

828
00:44:07,719 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: you dropped into. But that's where you found acting. I

829
00:44:11,719 --> 00:44:16,000
Speaker 1: also found an identity because I didn't know who. You know,

830
00:44:16,239 --> 00:44:18,719
Speaker 1: what was my label before? That was I. It was

831
00:44:18,760 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 1: either kind of slightly vulgarian from north West London, Jewish world.

832
00:44:22,320 --> 00:44:25,160
Speaker 1: Was I, you know, a guy from Liverpool. I was

833
00:44:25,200 --> 00:44:27,880
Speaker 1: Jasoniced as a student actor or student director like that

834
00:44:27,960 --> 00:44:31,160
Speaker 1: was the thing. I had a label, UM, and I

835
00:44:31,200 --> 00:44:33,160
Speaker 1: loved it. I loved it. I had someone to go to.

836
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:35,359
Speaker 1: It might have been maybe it would have been just

837
00:44:35,400 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 1: as comfortable a community if I joined the Origami group whatever.

838
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:42,440
Speaker 1: Just I had some people. I had my people, UM,

839
00:44:42,480 --> 00:44:45,520
Speaker 1: and the stuff that we talked about it seems so

840
00:44:45,640 --> 00:44:47,879
Speaker 1: much more interesting than stuff that that people were talking

841
00:44:47,920 --> 00:44:49,560
Speaker 1: about when they were having drinks in each other's room

842
00:44:49,640 --> 00:44:52,040
Speaker 1: or party, but stuff talking about the stuff of life.

843
00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 1: Now we hadn't really lived any life ourselves yet, but

844
00:44:55,520 --> 00:44:58,239
Speaker 1: still we were talking about those things. And we also

845
00:44:58,280 --> 00:45:00,080
Speaker 1: did all those things that student draw me. Know, you

846
00:45:00,120 --> 00:45:01,759
Speaker 1: think it's clever to be naked and swear a lot,

847
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 1: and all the players are always about sex. But but

848
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:09,000
Speaker 1: I love that village, you know that suddenly there's a

849
00:45:09,040 --> 00:45:12,360
Speaker 1: new village every time. And I went to the Edinburgh

850
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:14,759
Speaker 1: Festival at of Fringe Theater a lot, and to the

851
00:45:14,840 --> 00:45:19,399
Speaker 1: National Student Theater Company a lot. I really I think

852
00:45:19,440 --> 00:45:22,239
Speaker 1: I probably dealt with or engaged with it in the

853
00:45:22,280 --> 00:45:24,799
Speaker 1: same way engaged with books when I was younger, or

854
00:45:24,880 --> 00:45:26,880
Speaker 1: candy when I was younger, or drugs when I was older.

855
00:45:26,920 --> 00:45:29,359
Speaker 1: Like it just I went full tilt. I went, oh,

856
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:32,000
Speaker 1: this is the thing, let's do this. And that's what

857
00:45:32,120 --> 00:45:34,799
Speaker 1: it was like getting into the theater. Yeah, just just

858
00:45:35,280 --> 00:45:38,439
Speaker 1: let's do Why would I do anything else? Like why

859
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:40,640
Speaker 1: any part of my day that isn't doing this is

860
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:41,960
Speaker 1: a wasted part of the day. Like when I used

861
00:45:42,000 --> 00:45:45,480
Speaker 1: to smoke a lot, anytime I inhaled, and I wasn't inhaling.

862
00:45:45,520 --> 00:45:48,640
Speaker 1: Smoke seemed like a wasted inhale. And that's what it

863
00:45:48,680 --> 00:45:51,880
Speaker 1: felt like doing plays and putting plays on and directing

864
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:55,960
Speaker 1: places and stuff. That's sort of you know, you hear

865
00:45:56,000 --> 00:45:59,279
Speaker 1: the term adrenaline junkie, but I think about some of

866
00:45:59,280 --> 00:46:03,239
Speaker 1: that relentless almost as being like a pleasure drunkie in

867
00:46:03,280 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 1: the way that you describe it. This like desire to

868
00:46:07,320 --> 00:46:11,320
Speaker 1: really feel, to have it be experiential all the time.

869
00:46:12,600 --> 00:46:14,920
Speaker 1: You found it in theater. But you say that you

870
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 1: knew you had it. Perhaps you knew you had it.

871
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:22,759
Speaker 1: Upon reflection as a child with books, with skateboarding, I didn't.

872
00:46:22,800 --> 00:46:26,080
Speaker 1: I didn't have a sense that I liked extremes when

873
00:46:26,120 --> 00:46:28,319
Speaker 1: I just you know, if I wanted to finish a book,

874
00:46:28,320 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: I would make myself finish the book. If I was

875
00:46:30,040 --> 00:46:33,000
Speaker 1: tired falling asleep, I'd prick myself with pins or splash

876
00:46:33,040 --> 00:46:35,160
Speaker 1: myself with water. I'd be under the cover with a

877
00:46:35,200 --> 00:46:37,719
Speaker 1: flashlight because I'm going to finish this book tonight. And

878
00:46:37,760 --> 00:46:41,000
Speaker 1: I finished the book. You know, I just I had

879
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 1: a tendency to I don't know what to too extreme,

880
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:49,719
Speaker 1: to extremity, to not want you to give in too.

881
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:53,360
Speaker 1: I don't know what good sense I think, why what

882
00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:57,080
Speaker 1: is giving into good sense feel like giving up? No,

883
00:46:57,239 --> 00:47:00,560
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, I don't really stand it.

884
00:47:01,080 --> 00:47:03,960
Speaker 1: I recognize that I've had it in my life and that,

885
00:47:04,040 --> 00:47:07,040
Speaker 1: you know, it's what has sustained me. Sometimes it's helped

886
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 1: me achieve things. At other times it's destroyed me. At

887
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:13,960
Speaker 1: other times it's just an instinct to push through and

888
00:47:14,000 --> 00:47:18,839
Speaker 1: not to settle for mediocrity. Yes, So then, how as

889
00:47:18,880 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: that sort of drive is applied to theater, do you

890
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:28,240
Speaker 1: wind up graduating with a large degree? How does that happen? Well,

891
00:47:28,960 --> 00:47:31,280
Speaker 1: I mean I have a law degree. It's technically true.

892
00:47:31,840 --> 00:47:34,880
Speaker 1: First of all, none of those laws are still in place.

893
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:37,440
Speaker 1: I don't think that I studied them, you know, pre thatcher.

894
00:47:37,560 --> 00:47:40,800
Speaker 1: But I think they gave me the law degree in

895
00:47:40,800 --> 00:47:42,680
Speaker 1: the end because they didn't want to failure on their books.

896
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 1: I did very well in the first and second year.

897
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:47,319
Speaker 1: By the end of the third year I knew, I

898
00:47:47,320 --> 00:47:48,320
Speaker 1: do know. At the beginning the third year I was

899
00:47:48,360 --> 00:47:51,640
Speaker 1: going to go to drama school, and so I didn't. Yeah,

900
00:47:51,760 --> 00:47:55,320
Speaker 1: so the so I didn't go into the law faculty

901
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:57,280
Speaker 1: at all. I did know lectures. I did know essays

902
00:47:57,320 --> 00:48:01,920
Speaker 1: and no tutorials. UM. And then I took the exams,

903
00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 1: you know, and I wrote down what I thought the

904
00:48:04,640 --> 00:48:06,719
Speaker 1: laws ought to be, not what they were, and I

905
00:48:06,800 --> 00:48:10,560
Speaker 1: drew pictures to illustrate some. I even tried to cheat

906
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:13,440
Speaker 1: at one point because I just had there was a subject,

907
00:48:13,480 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 1: I just knew nothing about it at all. And I

908
00:48:15,680 --> 00:48:19,080
Speaker 1: shared a house with other student lawyers, and I got

909
00:48:19,160 --> 00:48:20,560
Speaker 1: them to try and come in my room and briefed

910
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:22,600
Speaker 1: me the night before. And the notion that you could

911
00:48:22,640 --> 00:48:25,040
Speaker 1: be briefed in one night for what these very smart

912
00:48:25,080 --> 00:48:27,600
Speaker 1: people had studied all years laughable. And I tried to

913
00:48:27,640 --> 00:48:30,120
Speaker 1: look at a little kind of cheat sheet, M and

914
00:48:30,160 --> 00:48:32,440
Speaker 1: I wrote down a list, because in those days, studying

915
00:48:32,480 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 1: laws a lot about memory, memorizing cases. UM. So I

916
00:48:36,080 --> 00:48:38,600
Speaker 1: thought I wrote out ten case names. I write them

917
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:40,319
Speaker 1: on a piece of paper, and I thought that would

918
00:48:40,400 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 1: jog the memory of the thing I had half looked

919
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:46,000
Speaker 1: at at four o'clock this morning. That morning, UM, and

920
00:48:46,080 --> 00:48:49,120
Speaker 1: I went into the exam and I knew nothing, and

921
00:48:49,160 --> 00:48:50,600
Speaker 1: I went to the toilet and I pulled this piece

922
00:48:50,640 --> 00:48:52,320
Speaker 1: of paper out and I looked and I tried to

923
00:48:52,360 --> 00:48:55,320
Speaker 1: remember four names that I could come back and expand

924
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:57,719
Speaker 1: on UM. And I went and sat back down to

925
00:48:57,760 --> 00:49:00,120
Speaker 1: my scene, and I couldn't remember what they were, so

926
00:49:00,719 --> 00:49:02,640
Speaker 1: I think they gave me a degree. They took my

927
00:49:02,719 --> 00:49:05,239
Speaker 1: honors away, so it's an LLLB with honors, and they

928
00:49:05,280 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 1: took the honors away because I've done well in the

929
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:10,720
Speaker 1: previous two years and they thought in that third year, Um,

930
00:49:10,800 --> 00:49:12,239
Speaker 1: he's not going to be a lawyer. He's not going

931
00:49:12,280 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: to shame us in court, and we don't want to

932
00:49:14,440 --> 00:49:16,360
Speaker 1: have a failure in our books. Was there a conversation

933
00:49:16,400 --> 00:49:19,320
Speaker 1: about this with your brothers, because they went very traditional.

934
00:49:19,480 --> 00:49:22,360
Speaker 1: You have a lawyer, you have a doctor, you have

935
00:49:22,400 --> 00:49:25,640
Speaker 1: an accountant. You know, in the troop of the four

936
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:28,439
Speaker 1: of you, did you admit to them what was going

937
00:49:28,440 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: on at the time or now? No? No, I was,

938
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:31,799
Speaker 1: I mean I did. That's funny. My god a daughter

939
00:49:31,800 --> 00:49:34,080
Speaker 1: at university now and she never calls and and she

940
00:49:34,120 --> 00:49:35,880
Speaker 1: doesn't really answer when I call her, and I get

941
00:49:35,960 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 1: incredibly upset because we've been very close as parents all

942
00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:40,759
Speaker 1: the time. And then I remember that I would call

943
00:49:40,840 --> 00:49:42,360
Speaker 1: once every couple of weeks on a pay phone for

944
00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:45,600
Speaker 1: five minutes. You know, I really I walked away from

945
00:49:45,600 --> 00:49:47,640
Speaker 1: my family, away from the world. Whe it was a

946
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:50,359
Speaker 1: pretty dysfunctional family. You know, you don't become a drug

947
00:49:50,400 --> 00:49:53,200
Speaker 1: addict or an actor, frankly, unless there's some cracks in

948
00:49:53,239 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 1: the mold. And we were not that kind to each other.

949
00:49:56,560 --> 00:49:59,880
Speaker 1: There's some very destructive behavior going on, and so I

950
00:50:00,040 --> 00:50:01,759
Speaker 1: didn't share it with them. I did talk to my

951
00:50:01,800 --> 00:50:04,400
Speaker 1: dad today was nine. He asked me what my daughter,

952
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:06,960
Speaker 1: who's studying English at Cambridge is going to do? And

953
00:50:07,000 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 1: I said, no, I did Dad. He said, well, but

954
00:50:09,120 --> 00:50:10,799
Speaker 1: what does your plan to do a job but being

955
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:13,719
Speaker 1: English teacher? And I went, I don't think so why

956
00:50:13,760 --> 00:50:16,440
Speaker 1: is she studying English? And I said, Dad, because what happens?

957
00:50:16,520 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 1: You were poor? My dad left school at fifteen and

958
00:50:18,600 --> 00:50:20,800
Speaker 1: work with his hands. And I go, and you wanted

959
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:24,880
Speaker 1: your kids to do better. They needed to study something professional,

960
00:50:24,960 --> 00:50:27,760
Speaker 1: have a real job. So we all study these things

961
00:50:27,760 --> 00:50:30,600
Speaker 1: that would not be you know, someone working with their

962
00:50:30,640 --> 00:50:34,000
Speaker 1: hands like you were. And then I made some money,

963
00:50:34,000 --> 00:50:36,520
Speaker 1: and so my kids don't think about having a job

964
00:50:36,600 --> 00:50:39,279
Speaker 1: at all. They'll probably be poor and work and so

965
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:41,160
Speaker 1: their kids will once again be back on the cycle.

966
00:50:41,200 --> 00:50:43,720
Speaker 1: But my kids just think that life is about dreaming

967
00:50:43,760 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: and following you know your passions and who knows where

968
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:50,239
Speaker 1: they'll land. But yeah, they didn't mind. I guess for

969
00:50:50,360 --> 00:50:52,960
Speaker 1: my parents, they had all the boxes ticked. And also

970
00:50:53,760 --> 00:50:55,640
Speaker 1: I wasn't really a kid that you stopped doing what

971
00:50:55,680 --> 00:50:58,760
Speaker 1: he wanted to do. I just I was pretty single minded.

972
00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:02,120
Speaker 1: I did think. I don't know, you were you very successful,

973
00:51:02,200 --> 00:51:05,879
Speaker 1: very young, um, and obviously made money. When I chose

974
00:51:05,920 --> 00:51:08,880
Speaker 1: to be an actor in Britain, I chose to be poor,

975
00:51:09,480 --> 00:51:12,279
Speaker 1: I thought. I mean, I chose a life of art

976
00:51:12,680 --> 00:51:14,960
Speaker 1: that I imagine would have me in kind of one

977
00:51:15,000 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: bedroom studio apartments, eating cold beans out of a tin,

978
00:51:18,840 --> 00:51:21,799
Speaker 1: but being artistically fulfilled. There was no part of me

979
00:51:21,840 --> 00:51:23,680
Speaker 1: the thought I would ever make a living at all.

980
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:26,640
Speaker 1: But I just thought, that's that. That's okay. I'll be

981
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:29,799
Speaker 1: okay with that for a while. Yeah, I mean, I

982
00:51:29,840 --> 00:51:33,400
Speaker 1: didn't you know I spent years hustling and on the

983
00:51:33,640 --> 00:51:38,480
Speaker 1: audition circuit and um, working retail. I'm like, no, I didn't,

984
00:51:39,320 --> 00:51:43,960
Speaker 1: I didn't, did you know? They always say it takes

985
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:47,960
Speaker 1: years to become an overnight success, but I was in college,

986
00:51:48,080 --> 00:51:53,480
Speaker 1: so I think it was less surprising. Um. God, I

987
00:51:53,560 --> 00:51:57,279
Speaker 1: lived in ship holes at school every every summer because

988
00:51:57,280 --> 00:51:59,600
Speaker 1: I didn't want to go home. My parents couldn't believe

989
00:51:59,680 --> 00:52:02,040
Speaker 1: I didn't want to come back to the house for summer,

990
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:03,640
Speaker 1: and I was like, are you out of your minds?

991
00:52:03,640 --> 00:52:05,759
Speaker 1: You think I'm coming home to a curfew? Like get

992
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:10,759
Speaker 1: out of here? Um Like, I wanted to act because

993
00:52:10,800 --> 00:52:13,360
Speaker 1: I wanted not to be myself, wanted to explore other worlds.

994
00:52:13,880 --> 00:52:16,840
Speaker 1: I wanted to be anything other than where what I was,

995
00:52:16,880 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 1: where I came from. Yeah, you're looking for I for

996
00:52:21,360 --> 00:52:26,120
Speaker 1: a person who I've learned other people view as um

997
00:52:26,520 --> 00:52:31,640
Speaker 1: very in the middle of things. I genuinely feel emotionally

998
00:52:31,760 --> 00:52:35,960
Speaker 1: like I'm in the corner most of the time. And

999
00:52:36,680 --> 00:52:40,879
Speaker 1: I was such a voracious reader. And when I did

1000
00:52:40,920 --> 00:52:44,920
Speaker 1: my first play, it it's such a silly thing to realize,

1001
00:52:44,960 --> 00:52:49,239
Speaker 1: but it was like profound for me. I realized a

1002
00:52:49,320 --> 00:52:52,759
Speaker 1: play was just a book come to life and and

1003
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:55,960
Speaker 1: the big story. Yeah, but it but it was it

1004
00:52:56,040 --> 00:52:59,440
Speaker 1: was the world's I would go into and feel seen

1005
00:52:59,600 --> 00:53:03,239
Speaker 1: and rep presented and see what I desired in my

1006
00:53:03,280 --> 00:53:06,920
Speaker 1: own life. It was that world was real while we

1007
00:53:06,920 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 1: were on stage. And did you like expressing your emotions

1008
00:53:12,640 --> 00:53:14,399
Speaker 1: in ways that you didn't do in your life? Where

1009
00:53:14,440 --> 00:53:18,160
Speaker 1: is that not true? For sure? I like shouting and

1010
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:23,640
Speaker 1: crying and screaming and being angry fighting, not being scared, never,

1011
00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:28,440
Speaker 1: because when you have dialogue, you know, unless you're playing

1012
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:31,839
Speaker 1: a scene where your character is fearful of something, I'm

1013
00:53:31,880 --> 00:53:36,800
Speaker 1: never afraid because I know I know what's coming. I'm

1014
00:53:36,840 --> 00:53:40,880
Speaker 1: I'm high on the unexpected experience inside of the container

1015
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 1: that I know that's an ultimate rush, but there is

1016
00:53:46,000 --> 00:53:48,520
Speaker 1: a safety, and this is the scene, and it will

1017
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:51,000
Speaker 1: begin and it will end, and you will express and

1018
00:53:51,040 --> 00:53:55,680
Speaker 1: you will be free. You can find something but still

1019
00:53:56,840 --> 00:54:01,879
Speaker 1: know it. And it's a very strange duality that I

1020
00:54:01,920 --> 00:54:05,160
Speaker 1: think is so beautiful about what we do. You can

1021
00:54:05,200 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 1: have a completely unexpected experience on a road that is

1022
00:54:09,160 --> 00:54:16,760
Speaker 1: completely expected. But it was very affirming for me and

1023
00:54:17,440 --> 00:54:19,799
Speaker 1: in my own life, there was a lot of expectation

1024
00:54:19,880 --> 00:54:22,439
Speaker 1: to be good, always be good, always be home on time,

1025
00:54:22,560 --> 00:54:25,600
Speaker 1: never break curfew, never sneak out, always let someone else

1026
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:29,719
Speaker 1: be the problem. So I never complained. I never had

1027
00:54:29,760 --> 00:54:33,480
Speaker 1: an issue. No matter how terrible something was, I gritted

1028
00:54:33,520 --> 00:54:35,040
Speaker 1: my teeth and I bared it and I did it

1029
00:54:35,040 --> 00:54:37,120
Speaker 1: and I made sure everyone else was okay. Well I

1030
00:54:37,160 --> 00:54:41,279
Speaker 1: did which you inherited because I'm not breaking confidence you,

1031
00:54:41,400 --> 00:54:43,640
Speaker 1: but you had some very unhappy work experiences where you

1032
00:54:44,000 --> 00:54:48,160
Speaker 1: also didn't speak out and didn't do this. Yeah, where

1033
00:54:48,200 --> 00:54:52,799
Speaker 1: we figured out inside spaces how to look out for

1034
00:54:52,840 --> 00:54:56,399
Speaker 1: each other, but we were never allowed to challenge authority.

1035
00:54:57,320 --> 00:55:01,600
Speaker 1: And then as I aged and got to understand more

1036
00:55:01,680 --> 00:55:06,880
Speaker 1: and did challenge authority, it got worse, not better. And

1037
00:55:06,880 --> 00:55:10,319
Speaker 1: and so I it gave me an immense amount of

1038
00:55:11,840 --> 00:55:17,839
Speaker 1: like DNA level understanding of other people in their own

1039
00:55:17,920 --> 00:55:21,960
Speaker 1: versions of those kinds of situations because you learn to

1040
00:55:22,239 --> 00:55:28,319
Speaker 1: cope so that it doesn't get worse. And it's part

1041
00:55:28,360 --> 00:55:31,440
Speaker 1: of the reason that I behave the way I behave

1042
00:55:31,520 --> 00:55:34,719
Speaker 1: on our set. It's remarkable. I you know, I did

1043
00:55:34,760 --> 00:55:37,640
Speaker 1: the whole David Us for our show yesterday and they're like,

1044
00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:40,799
Speaker 1: so tell me about Sophia Bush. What does the Bush

1045
00:55:40,880 --> 00:55:44,840
Speaker 1: like to work with? And and it is remarkable to

1046
00:55:44,880 --> 00:55:47,719
Speaker 1: watch you walk the walk and Katie, I'll showing a

1047
00:55:47,760 --> 00:55:50,440
Speaker 1: walk the walk that they both want to create a

1048
00:55:50,480 --> 00:55:53,880
Speaker 1: work environment that is full of people who want to

1049
00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:56,600
Speaker 1: go to work and feel like if they can, if

1050
00:55:56,640 --> 00:55:58,600
Speaker 1: they need to, they'll be heard if they speak out,

1051
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: and that they are being head for and listen to

1052
00:56:01,160 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, there's that's the kind of corporate

1053
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:06,439
Speaker 1: speak one expects to find absolutely everywhere where. When would

1054
00:56:06,440 --> 00:56:08,920
Speaker 1: anyone ever not say those things? But to see you

1055
00:56:08,960 --> 00:56:11,640
Speaker 1: do it and put it in motion and ask about

1056
00:56:11,640 --> 00:56:14,800
Speaker 1: people and see have Katie do it too, and Katie

1057
00:56:14,840 --> 00:56:16,960
Speaker 1: and Jenny whose company makes the show, for them to

1058
00:56:17,000 --> 00:56:21,520
Speaker 1: say um, which I found remarkable. So you know, I'm old.

1059
00:56:21,560 --> 00:56:24,360
Speaker 1: I've heard most sayings before. I certainly heard most bullshit

1060
00:56:24,400 --> 00:56:26,960
Speaker 1: Hollywood sayings a million times. And then for them to

1061
00:56:27,000 --> 00:56:28,919
Speaker 1: say I can't remember which one of Katie Jenny said.

1062
00:56:29,320 --> 00:56:31,400
Speaker 1: When people come to me with something, my first instinct

1063
00:56:31,480 --> 00:56:32,879
Speaker 1: is to say yes, and then I want to work

1064
00:56:32,920 --> 00:56:36,120
Speaker 1: out why. And I've been around, only been around people

1065
00:56:36,160 --> 00:56:38,759
Speaker 1: who who want to say know and how dare you?

1066
00:56:38,840 --> 00:56:42,040
Speaker 1: And then work out why? Um? And And so I

1067
00:56:42,080 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 1: see you at work, not that you're losing focus on

1068
00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:47,000
Speaker 1: the acting, but that you want work to be a

1069
00:56:47,040 --> 00:56:50,400
Speaker 1: place where justice prevails and the people are treated right

1070
00:56:50,480 --> 00:56:54,280
Speaker 1: and that ah, it's just you know, I've been working

1071
00:56:54,280 --> 00:56:56,759
Speaker 1: a long long time, and I've worked on some very

1072
00:56:56,760 --> 00:56:59,520
Speaker 1: lovely sets with some very lovely people, But I've never

1073
00:56:59,600 --> 00:57:02,719
Speaker 1: been around a place where that is a priority and

1074
00:57:02,840 --> 00:57:05,680
Speaker 1: put into action like it is. We're around here. It's remarkable.

1075
00:57:05,840 --> 00:57:08,120
Speaker 1: That makes me so happy. Well, this is a lot

1076
00:57:08,160 --> 00:57:19,240
Speaker 1: of fun. Do not forget that this is just part one.