Speaker 1: This episode is brought to you by Me and M,
Speaker 1: the British modern luxury clothing label designed for busy women.
Speaker 1: Founded and designed in London. Me and M is about
Speaker 1: intelligence style. Much thought and care are put into the
Speaker 1: design process, so every piece is flattering, functional and made
Speaker 1: to last forever. Me and M is well known for
Speaker 1: its trousers and how I got to know the brand.
Speaker 1: It's my go to for styles that are comfortable enough
Speaker 1: to wear in the kitchen or the restaurant, also polished
Speaker 1: enough for meetings. Me and M is available online and
Speaker 1: in stores across London, Edinburgh, New York. If you're in London,
Speaker 1: I'd really recommend heading to their beautiful, brand new flagship
Speaker 1: store in Marlevin, which opens on the twenty ninth of October.
Speaker 1: How often have people said to me, there is a
Speaker 1: certain person I must meet, Ruthie. I know you'll love
Speaker 1: her for a while. This has been said to me
Speaker 1: over and over about Sir shar Nan. In a way
Speaker 1: I feel I have met her through the intimacy of
Speaker 1: her performances, the movie she's shown to make and her
Speaker 1: fourthright interviews Greta Gerwick, who directed her in Ladybird and
Speaker 1: Little Women sat at the table with me in our house,
Speaker 1: talking about Sirsha and how unique the experience of working
Speaker 1: with her is. It's like we have one brain, she said.
Speaker 1: Now the three of us are here together, sitting around
Speaker 1: a table at the River Cafe. We're going to talk
Speaker 1: about food and cooking, Sirsha's garden, learning to eat spaghetti,
Speaker 1: and much much more. And now when people ask me,
Speaker 1: I will say, yes, I've met her, and yes I
Speaker 1: love her.
Speaker 2: Not so not I know is beautiful.
Speaker 3: It was so beautiful, so beautiful.
Speaker 2: Spaghetti with crab. Okay, so today we have five hundred
Speaker 2: grams of fresh crab meat. Is it white and dark
Speaker 2: white white?
Speaker 4: Three fresh red chilies, seated and finely chopped, Four tablespoons
Speaker 4: of flat leaf parsley, me chopped, the juice of four lemons,
Speaker 4: three garlic cloves, peeled and ground paste, two hundred and
Speaker 4: fifty mils of olive oil, five hundred grams of spaghetti.
Speaker 2: And extra virgin olive oil.
Speaker 4: Simple, simple, Put the crab in a bowl, add the chili's,
Speaker 4: most of the chopped parsley, the lemon, juice of garlic, the.
Speaker 2: Season well, stir in the olive oil.
Speaker 4: I feel like something's happening behind my head while I'm
Speaker 4: saying is cook the spaghetti and a generous amount of
Speaker 4: boiling water and drain thoroughly, stir into the crab sauce, but.
Speaker 2: Do not reheat.
Speaker 4: Serve sprinkled with the remaining chop parsley and a generous
Speaker 4: amount of olive oil.
Speaker 1: In Brooklyn, Yeah, you were taught how to eat spaghetti cetti,
Speaker 1: So you're going to teach us. You're going to teach
Speaker 1: Greta and I how to how to eat doing this right?
Speaker 4: Yeah, because well the girls in the film did it.
Speaker 2: The girls in the movie do it with a spoon.
Speaker 2: I never use a spoon. I would use I would
Speaker 2: never use.
Speaker 1: Well, they do that like they put the go for
Speaker 1: your tech.
Speaker 4: I don't like using a spoon, do you You just
Speaker 4: use the plate?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Italian way. You just stab it and spin it,
Speaker 2: stab and star.
Speaker 1: You were born in New York, Yeah, did your parents
Speaker 1: still feel a sense of identity with Ireland in New
Speaker 1: York and food wise?
Speaker 2: Do you think they did? They did? I think my
Speaker 2: mom did. Especially. Everything was just always homemade for us.
Speaker 2: It was always it was always the main event of
Speaker 2: the day.
Speaker 4: She would cook more traditional Irish stuff, so she used to.
Speaker 2: She still like she cooks like coddle. Have you heard
Speaker 2: of Irish coddle, which is like a stew. I don't know.
Speaker 2: She also when I was working, she didn't do it.
Speaker 4: On a Ladybird because she wasn't around for long enough.
Speaker 4: But Mom used to like batch cook and just like
Speaker 4: bring food in for the crew, even though.
Speaker 2: Nobody asked for it.
Speaker 4: But she was like, I'll just make this and I'll
Speaker 4: bring it in and whoever wants it can have it.
Speaker 4: And she would heat it up in my trailer when
Speaker 4: we were doing night shoots on like Hannah and stuff,
Speaker 4: when we were in the middle of like I don't know,
Speaker 4: Munich or something, and she'd make these like home cooked meals.
Speaker 2: And that's just kind of what I was used to.
Speaker 4: And coddle is sort of like an Irish stew that
Speaker 4: you can kind of put anything into. Its peasant food,
Speaker 4: like Ireland doesn't really have a cuisine in the way
Speaker 4: that like Italy, France, like Southern America does, Like there's
Speaker 4: no kind of specific diet except for potatoes and whatever
Speaker 4: meat you can get your hand on. So the soup
Speaker 4: would be she'd use like a vegetable broth. She puts
Speaker 4: barley in. It's celery, carrots, onions, sausages, rashers as we
Speaker 4: call them. But bacon, just lots and lots of goodness.
Speaker 4: And we used to have that a lot grown up,
Speaker 4: but we had that in the Bronx, Like that was
Speaker 4: the kind of food that she used to make.
Speaker 1: Did she work when I was a kid, She was
Speaker 1: a nanny, so she would come home from work and
Speaker 1: then cook.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she did it all lot. She brought me to
Speaker 2: work with her. Then she would cook.
Speaker 1: She took care of other people's children.
Speaker 4: She took care of other people's children. She would not
Speaker 4: only cook for Dad and I. But we always had
Speaker 4: Ireland stay with us. So because Dad became an actor
Speaker 4: while he was over there, and that was absolutely not
Speaker 4: part of the plan. Like Dad had not finished school,
Speaker 4: he hadn't even been to the theater before he auditioned
Speaker 4: for his first play. And when he got into that world,
Speaker 4: it became everything, really and they became such a part
Speaker 4: of that Irish American off off Broadway community. And so
Speaker 4: we had actors staying with us all the time in
Speaker 4: the Bronx, in the Bronx, in this tiny little like
Speaker 4: one bedroom flat, and we had this pull out sofa
Speaker 4: and you'd have like people like Brona Gallaher, who's this
Speaker 4: incredible Irish actor, Like they would live with us and
Speaker 4: man would cook for all of them.
Speaker 1: Did your parents go to New York out of a
Speaker 1: desire to work?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they left school when they were like fifteen sixteen
Speaker 4: and that was the place to go back then.
Speaker 2: So I think they had friends who had moved over
Speaker 2: ahead of them.
Speaker 1: And then they went back to Ireland. And so you
Speaker 1: probably don't remember New York if you left when you three.
Speaker 2: I remember what I ate?
Speaker 1: You don't before three? Can you remember what you ate
Speaker 1: before three?
Speaker 2: Don't what she does?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Interesting?
Speaker 4: There was this diner that I went back to for
Speaker 4: like a sixty second sixty secondary sixty minutes.
Speaker 3: That sixty minutes, sixty minutes, it's only sixty seconds.
Speaker 2: Your generation sounds.
Speaker 4: Like before you came in your generation.
Speaker 2: Version, Yeah, segments.
Speaker 4: And they brought me back to this diner that I
Speaker 4: used to go to when I was a kid, when
Speaker 4: I was like three or four, and I always had
Speaker 4: a grilled cheese sandwich and a pickle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you can remember that from being Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so was it? Did they react when they went back
Speaker 1: to Ireland, did they go back with joy and pleasure
Speaker 1: or did they just find New York was too tough?
Speaker 2: New York was tough.
Speaker 4: They didn't have enough money to stay there. But also
Speaker 4: Dad had become an actor that was doing relatively well
Speaker 4: and there was a surge of Irish work at that
Speaker 4: time because of Jim Sheard and Neil Jordan people like that,
Speaker 4: So the work was just taking him back home. And
Speaker 4: I think when ma'm had me, she was adamant that
Speaker 4: she was going to have me in the States so
Speaker 4: that I had citizenship, so that I was free to
Speaker 4: sort of roam in a way that they never were,
Speaker 4: which has been such a blessing in hindsight, because I
Speaker 4: you know, I've lived and worked in the States and
Speaker 4: I can come and go as I play, as I
Speaker 4: can vote in the election.
Speaker 2: Which is great.
Speaker 4: But I think she realized that this wasn't the kind
Speaker 4: of environment she wanted me to grow up. And because
Speaker 4: they didn't have enough money to like get a beautiful
Speaker 4: apartment or have a garden, or to a four day care, like.
Speaker 2: They just didn't have that.
Speaker 4: And also I think to have that support system for anyone,
Speaker 4: no matter where you live is so important when you
Speaker 4: have a kid. And also the work was taken dad
Speaker 4: back there, so they moved back.
Speaker 2: But the really.
Speaker 4: Interesting thing that my mom has kind of very honestly
Speaker 4: talked about me over the years is that there is
Speaker 4: still this notion of like the American dream and you
Speaker 4: sort of becoming like the next Kennedy. And when you
Speaker 4: come back from America and that hasn't happened, you sort
Speaker 4: of feel like your tail is between your legs a
Speaker 4: little bit. That you came back and it wasn't the
Speaker 4: success story that you thought it would be. It really
Speaker 4: made them who they are and they made some incredible
Speaker 4: friends over there, and I don't know if I would
Speaker 4: be doing what I am doing if they hadn't made
Speaker 4: that move, because that's where he was sort of discovered.
Speaker 2: As an actor. But it was it was hard, you know.
Speaker 4: And they were also coming back to Ireland during the
Speaker 4: Celtic Tiger where everything had become so expensive in that booth.
Speaker 4: That was the night that was like, yeah, the nineties,
Speaker 4: two thousands, and that was to Dublin. They moved back
Speaker 4: to Dublin for a spell and then we that's what
Speaker 4: took us to the countryside because Dublin was just too.
Speaker 1: Expect You remember the garden. Was there a garden in
Speaker 1: the country side, Yes, your mother, because you have a
Speaker 1: garden in London, don't you.
Speaker 2: I have a little garden in London.
Speaker 1: And what was a garden like in your house when
Speaker 1: you're growing up?
Speaker 2: It was the best we had.
Speaker 4: That's where I used to do all my audition tapes
Speaker 4: and and that was always the thing.
Speaker 2: That like directors and producers.
Speaker 4: Commented on when I sent over my audition for Atonement.
Speaker 4: I remember Gina j the cast an agent, and Joe
Speaker 4: the director, and everyone was like, we just couldn't believe
Speaker 4: it when you came out of that orp English accent
Speaker 4: and you showed us around this beautiful garden.
Speaker 1: That you grow around the garden.
Speaker 2: It was a big garden. It was probably like half
Speaker 2: an acre. It had. I remember when we moved in,
Speaker 2: there was two rose beds.
Speaker 4: That my mom hated. My mom never liked roses for
Speaker 4: some reason. I think they were sort of hard to tame.
Speaker 4: And she did the whole garden by herself. She used
Speaker 4: to use like a.
Speaker 2: Manual lawnmower and she would do the whole thing.
Speaker 4: It was like backbreaking work and it would take her
Speaker 4: like two days to cut all of the grass. It
Speaker 4: was quite manicured when we moved in, and she kept
Speaker 4: it up for years.
Speaker 1: Was it vegebles of flowers?
Speaker 4: It was flowers, and we had The people who owned
Speaker 4: it before us were an older couple and the woman
Speaker 4: was really into vegetables and she had a grapevine in
Speaker 4: a glasshouse. So I remember that was in the middle
Speaker 4: of the garden. And then over on the other side
Speaker 4: there was a sort of big stone wall with a
Speaker 4: tree grown out of it. And my dad did tree
Speaker 4: surgery for a while and there was a guy that
Speaker 4: he worked with who one day just decided to tie
Speaker 4: sort of this thick blue rope to the tree and
Speaker 4: he added a little log to the end of it
Speaker 4: and that was their swing. We just called it the rope,
Speaker 4: and myself and any of my friends that were over
Speaker 4: would just spend.
Speaker 2: Like the whole day out there.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we have a really beautiful garden in Scotland. My
Speaker 4: husband Scottish and.
Speaker 2: We have vegetables that we grew this year. And so I.
Speaker 4: Keep thinking about like hopefully when we have kids one
Speaker 4: day being able to.
Speaker 2: Be like, should we go out to the shops.
Speaker 4: Just wandering outside digging up a load of potatoes.
Speaker 2: And onions and shalots, and.
Speaker 4: I'm getting so much enjoyment out of that, and I
Speaker 4: find it. It might sound silly to say, but I
Speaker 4: find it really inspirational. It like it feeds my soul
Speaker 4: in a way that the city just doesn't.
Speaker 1: When I interviewed Michael Caine, two things he liked with
Speaker 1: gardening and cooking because being an actor on a set,
Speaker 1: you have hundreds of people. It's collaborative. You've got people
Speaker 1: around you. And it was something that he could do
Speaker 1: by himself alone, but he could make something.
Speaker 4: You know, whether there was and it's something that's taken
Speaker 4: out of your hands when you are an actor a
Speaker 4: lot of the time, Like I've gone on to jobs
Speaker 4: where I vowed to cook for myself and then bring
Speaker 4: everything in during the week, and you just don't.
Speaker 2: You just don't follow through with it.
Speaker 4: But I I really miss it, and it makes me
Speaker 4: feel quite empty when I can't cook for myself.
Speaker 2: Like yesterday was Sunday, I cooked.
Speaker 4: A massive roast for just myself and my husband with
Speaker 4: all the trimmings, and it was delicious and full of love.
Speaker 4: And I took a few hours to put it together
Speaker 4: the proue. So I was telling your chef, I think
Speaker 4: it's from this cookbook that I found called Bitter Honey.
Speaker 2: Have you come across that coup book?
Speaker 4: And it's this english woman who moved over to Sardinia and.
Speaker 2: She has this beautiful recipe for.
Speaker 4: Like this anchovy garlic rosemary butter with lemon zest that
Speaker 4: she puts into a micrea that she puts into the chicken.
Speaker 4: And so I made a big stock of it ages
Speaker 4: ago and froze it and then just used a little
Speaker 4: bit of it yesterday.
Speaker 2: And I did that with like lots of gorgeous roasted
Speaker 2: veg with.
Speaker 4: With a honey that I got in Broadway Market yesterday actually,
Speaker 4: which is honey from the Venetian Lagoon.
Speaker 1: Every year, the River Cafe curates holiday gift boxes filled
Speaker 1: with Italian ingredients. Are extravirginal oil bottled exclusively for the
Speaker 1: River Cafe, Pawa Petrelli, tomatoes from Puya, Tuscan chocolates, and
Speaker 1: candied sweets from Genoa. One of our best boxes is
Speaker 1: the International Box, which also has River Cafe Limited edition
Speaker 1: jam Chipriani Ultra Fan taglerin need pasta River Cafe Cantucci,
Speaker 1: Anda Bella Freud candle. Order on our website, shop The
Speaker 1: River Cafe dot co dot uk or call me an
Speaker 1: O seven Sorry, okay, thanks.
Speaker 4: Food has always been so important to me. It's it's
Speaker 4: so emotional for everyone. But like my dinner in particular
Speaker 4: is something that I cannot skip. It's kind of how
Speaker 4: I like anchor myself.
Speaker 2: I build my whole day. I'm not joking. I build
Speaker 2: my whole day.
Speaker 4: Around my dinner and what I'm going to cook and
Speaker 4: when I'm gonna have it and who I'm gonna have
Speaker 4: it with.
Speaker 1: Your mother brought up with that notion of food that
Speaker 1: was your grandmother. Do you think your grandmother brought your
Speaker 1: mother up to have a meal every night and that
Speaker 1: food was that you had.
Speaker 4: I don't think Mam will mind me saying mom has
Speaker 4: quite a complex relationship with food.
Speaker 2: But she I think.
Speaker 4: She's always believed that by making and my dad is
Speaker 4: an incredible cook as well. She believed by injecting love
Speaker 4: into the food, you will taste that.
Speaker 2: And she every.
Speaker 4: Single Sunday, no matter where we were, would make a
Speaker 4: Sunday roast, and that was our tradition.
Speaker 1: You started so young, acting so do your mother brought
Speaker 1: domestic life wherever you were working. Yeah, so when did
Speaker 1: that stop?
Speaker 2: I was about eighteen or nineteen when I did.
Speaker 1: Why did it stop? But you just thought it.
Speaker 2: Was just time, you know. But it was an adjustment
Speaker 2: because she had been with me constantly for this whole time,
Speaker 2: through this incredibly formative, intense stage in my life, for
Speaker 2: every single moment of it.
Speaker 4: She was the one who I ran lines with. She
Speaker 4: was the one who when I would come home at
Speaker 4: the end of the day, I'd go, do you think
Speaker 4: this director likes me? Or like, I don't know, did
Speaker 4: this go well today? Or I don't think I did
Speaker 4: that as well as I could have done.
Speaker 2: And she was the thing that.
Speaker 4: Really kind of kept me in reality, and it was
Speaker 4: an adjustment for both of it.
Speaker 1: Did she I share this with you?
Speaker 2: She did.
Speaker 4: My dad is an excellent cook, so I think I
Speaker 4: learned a lot from my dad. And then also just
Speaker 4: when I left home when I was about ninety and
Speaker 4: I moved to London. I was in Highgate, which wasn't
Speaker 4: the right place for a teenager to go, but anyway,
Speaker 4: I went to Highgate and it was lovely, but I
Speaker 4: was very much I had my own flat because I'm
Speaker 4: not into like living with anyone.
Speaker 2: But I do regret that now, and I was very
Speaker 2: very lonely, and I don't know, I didn't make a
Speaker 2: conscious decision to.
Speaker 4: Do it, but I just it seemed to be very
Speaker 4: very important to me that I picked a recipe every
Speaker 4: single day and decided what I was going to cook
Speaker 4: for dinner just for myself that night. And I hadn't
Speaker 4: figured out like portion control yet, so I cooked for
Speaker 4: like four people for myself and ate most of it.
Speaker 2: And I did that every single entertained.
Speaker 1: Did you think of having people over?
Speaker 2: You know what? I didn't know as many people as
Speaker 2: I thought it did.
Speaker 1: What were your filming?
Speaker 4: So when I moved over, I just moved over for myself.
Speaker 4: I just wanted to leave Ireland and I needed to
Speaker 4: be somewhere else. But soon after I did Brooklyn, which
Speaker 4: of course heavily focuses on leaving home and homesickness and
Speaker 4: how shocking it is actually when you go through that experience,
Speaker 4: because nothing can really prepare you for it, And so
Speaker 4: I was going through that exact.
Speaker 2: Feeling and didn't have enough distance from it in order
Speaker 2: to see it clearly, I think.
Speaker 4: So that was I would say that, and Ladybird, and
Speaker 4: I've been saying this recently. Both of those characters were
Speaker 4: highlighting something that I was feeling very very vividly in
Speaker 4: my own life. And sometimes I found it really difficult
Speaker 4: playing those roles because it was so close to home,
Speaker 4: and it was very hard to have any separation from it,
Speaker 4: I suppose, but Brooklyn in particular was very difficult.
Speaker 2: It was very overwhelming at times.
Speaker 1: Was it completely filmed in London?
Speaker 2: No, anything in London.
Speaker 4: We filmed three weeks in Ennescorthy, which is where it's
Speaker 4: set in Wexford and that's where Contobain's from.
Speaker 2: And then we went to Montreal.
Speaker 4: Which doubled for Brooklyn because Brooklyn nowadays doesn't look like
Speaker 4: it did in the fifties.
Speaker 1: Did you go to restaurants? Was a kind of experienced food?
Speaker 1: Did your parents ever take you to restaurants? Or did
Speaker 1: you when you were living alone in London? Did you
Speaker 1: go to Greek or Chinese or eat food that was
Speaker 1: other than Irish?
Speaker 4: I ate a lot, I mean we ate a lot
Speaker 4: of different types of food in New York. Chinese was
Speaker 4: my favorite. And actually, when I did Jamie Oliver's cooking show,
Speaker 4: a few years ago, I asked, could we make general
Speaker 4: sous chicken, which is something that you don't get here,
Speaker 4: and I.
Speaker 2: Don't think he'd heard of it before.
Speaker 4: Some people say so, some people say show it's like tangy, yeah,
Speaker 4: but spicy as well.
Speaker 2: It's not quite sweet and sour. It's kind of more.
Speaker 4: Like an orange dish. But yeah, we made it together.
Speaker 2: Which was really nice.
Speaker 1: Jack he loves does he love food?
Speaker 4: He loves food, but he loves how much I love food,
Speaker 4: and I think he I remember when we were sort
Speaker 4: of coursing.
Speaker 2: I ate.
Speaker 4: I think I was eating like a burger or something,
Speaker 4: and I looked at him and I was like, what
Speaker 4: are you looking at?
Speaker 2: We were watching something on the TV, and he was like,
Speaker 2: I'm watching.
Speaker 4: You while you eat the burger because you're getting so
Speaker 4: much out of the burger.
Speaker 2: And that was when I knew. I was like, you're
Speaker 2: my guy, and thank you. So yeah, so we yeah,
Speaker 2: we love it.
Speaker 1: And we were talking about Little Women and we're talking
Speaker 1: about the food that can you talk about both of you?
Speaker 1: Tell me about the food scene and little Women.
Speaker 3: The food and Little Women was period correct and there
Speaker 3: were always like cakes and buns and things, and you know, I.
Speaker 1: Was just watching you eat all that ice cream.
Speaker 2: We ate those florins that ate all the ice cream.
Speaker 2: I feel like you got it. Maybe it was me
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: I ate.
Speaker 2: I ate a lot of popcorn that day.
Speaker 4: It was just really interesting that we would have these
Speaker 4: scenes where either there was such a lack of food
Speaker 4: and that's all we could talk about, or there was
Speaker 4: too much food, or then we had a Christmas sequence
Speaker 4: in Little Women where the food was repurposed for Christmas decorations,
Speaker 4: which I've been very inspired by every Christmas since. So
Speaker 4: I'll like dry oranges and use bits of popcorn and
Speaker 4: put them on the string and.
Speaker 1: Things like that.
Speaker 2: They got very creative on Little Women.
Speaker 1: When you talk about film sets, and you've talked about
Speaker 1: the dinner, the importance of the dinner at night, do
Speaker 1: you have breakfast and do have lunch when you're working?
Speaker 4: Yeah, I definitely have lunch breakfast. I'll have something small
Speaker 4: sometimes I'm not that hungry during breakfast. But each movie
Speaker 4: has had a different type of breakfast. So like I
Speaker 4: did a film in Australia a couple of years ago,
Speaker 4: and they love veggiemite and they love their smashed avocado,
Speaker 4: So I would have smashed avocado on toast with veggiemite
Speaker 4: for breakfast every day, for breakfast every day the whole shoot. Yeah,
Speaker 4: on a job I did at the start of the year,
Speaker 4: I was just having smoothies.
Speaker 2: It depends breakfast isn't as important for me.
Speaker 4: But then when I'm away, you know, on holiday in
Speaker 4: places like Italy and France, it will become very continental
Speaker 4: and very much about the cheese and the meat and
Speaker 4: the fruit. And I think when I'm in Italy or France,
Speaker 4: that's the only time that I really enjoy breakfast.
Speaker 2: I look forward to breakfast because of how they do it.
Speaker 2: I prefer how they do it, and when you're.
Speaker 1: Working to other foods that make you feel more like
Speaker 1: working and some that make you feel more tired, is it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that's the problem actually on a lot
Speaker 4: of movie sets is that less caterers are doing it now.
Speaker 4: But for a really long time, caterers.
Speaker 2: Would make like really stodgy, heavy food when.
Speaker 4: We were doing Little Women and you were braggers, but
Speaker 4: nobody knew. I knew something was off off because on
Speaker 4: Ladybird all she ate ri Cheetos, like six packets of
Speaker 4: Cheetos a day.
Speaker 1: You went back to the food of your kind of
Speaker 1: teenage cheers.
Speaker 4: And then we went on to little women and I'd
Speaker 4: come over to the monitor and she'd have a wooden
Speaker 4: I specifically remember a wooden bowl, a big wooden bowl
Speaker 4: with an entire roast chicken in the bowl, like.
Speaker 2: On a bed of salad.
Speaker 4: And she'd lead that every day and I was like,
Speaker 4: what happened to you? Like, why are you so health conscious?
Speaker 1: Now?
Speaker 2: This isn't the credit. I knew it from a few
Speaker 2: years ago.
Speaker 3: A good day, I had like a full leg of
Speaker 3: lamb and you were like, you, Queen, I know.
Speaker 1: My young prince.
Speaker 5: Needs only the best.
Speaker 4: Even then at the end, when someone was like, she's pregnant,
Speaker 4: that's what it is, I was like, that's a fox.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is it a fox or a cat?
Speaker 2: That's a dog, it's a terrier, it's not a fox.
Speaker 2: But there's so many foxes around London now.
Speaker 1: When we have a flat in the basement and somebody
Speaker 1: my son was down there and Bow had the door
Speaker 1: open and the fox wondered, I like, London has foxes
Speaker 1: kind of wild.
Speaker 3: It makes me feel like it is like not totally controlled.
Speaker 4: No, And I feel like the number of Foxes has
Speaker 4: gone up in the last few years. We have a
Speaker 4: street around the corner from us and it's like the
Speaker 4: Fox Street, like there's a whole family that lived there.
Speaker 1: If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for would you
Speaker 1: please make sure to rate and review the podcast on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, O, wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I thought we could talk about Blitz for
Speaker 1: a minute. I haven't seen it. It's about a mother
Speaker 1: and separation and a child in separation. Is that right?
Speaker 2: I guess yeah, I guess.
Speaker 4: What Steve mcquaan has done really brilliantly is that he's
Speaker 4: paired the romanticism that I think people who grew up
Speaker 4: during the Blitz and during the Second World War do
Speaker 4: have about that period. And I think that's born out
Speaker 4: of the human spirit that just will always endure no
Speaker 4: matter what it's faced with. So that is absolutely something
Speaker 4: to be celebrated. And we have moments of people coming
Speaker 4: together and working.
Speaker 2: Together in Blitz, but in true Steve.
Speaker 4: Mcquaan fashion, it's an incredibly honest take on.
Speaker 2: The cruelty of life.
Speaker 4: And war and how hard people can be on one another,
Speaker 4: and it kind of feels like the Blitz itself is
Speaker 4: more of a backdrop for this very domestic story actually
Speaker 4: between a child and his mother and that incredibly tense relationship,
Speaker 4: especially between a single parents and their child, and how
Speaker 4: when they are separated from one another there is this
Speaker 4: invisible tie, as I'm sure you guys feel with your kids.
Speaker 4: My best friend just had her first baby and she
Speaker 4: said that, you know, even when I'm not with him,
Speaker 4: i am there.
Speaker 2: There's one half of my brain that is just always
Speaker 2: with him.
Speaker 4: And so I think that's what we're really connecting to
Speaker 4: in Blitz, is that you.
Speaker 1: Are and grem Nord. Let's talk about grem Norton.
Speaker 4: I was on, Yes, I was on Graham and I
Speaker 4: had such a great time, and I was there with Paul, Who's.
Speaker 1: There was love that. I really liked them all. I
Speaker 1: did a podcast with Eddie and Paul's great.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And I think Paul and I knew over the
Speaker 4: last few months that with him having Gladiator out, me
Speaker 4: having these two movies out, that we would hopefully be
Speaker 4: doing a lot of our press together, which is a
Speaker 4: relief for us because I think when you're in you know,
Speaker 4: a crowded and you're able to look across and see
Speaker 4: someone that you genuinely love, like when Greta and I
Speaker 4: will do stuff together as well, it just sort of
Speaker 4: it grounds you. But yeah, there was this comment that
Speaker 4: I was Eddie was being sort of coached on how
Speaker 4: he could use anything as a weapon for his show,
Speaker 4: that you could use any it could be a tea
Speaker 4: cup or whatever, and the lads were saying, how you know,
Speaker 4: in the heat of the moment, if you're being attached
Speaker 4: by someone, you would never think to use anything as
Speaker 4: a weapon. And I was listening to it, and it
Speaker 4: really wasn't sort of me trying to put anyone in
Speaker 4: their place, but I was just being honest about like
Speaker 4: a girl's experience in this life is that you sort
Speaker 4: of need to you need to look in your bag
Speaker 4: before you go out, before you even leave the house,
Speaker 4: and go, Okay, what can I use in case I
Speaker 4: get attacked?
Speaker 2: And we can laugh about it, but it's true.
Speaker 4: And so I think that's why I made that comment
Speaker 4: that actually, for girls, you do have to think about
Speaker 4: this sort of stuff and you would be fully aware
Speaker 4: that you can use something like an iPhone as a weapon.
Speaker 4: But I am very conscious of that, like I don't
Speaker 4: have kids yet, But the older I'm getting and the
Speaker 4: more aware I am at the effect that that's had
Speaker 4: on me as a person, and it does every single woman.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 4: The idea of my little girl having to think about
Speaker 4: that and this being on her shoulders as it inevitably will.
Speaker 1: Be, yeah and yours and hers, and yeah, it.
Speaker 2: Makes me so angry. Actually, it makes me really angry.
Speaker 4: And I guess the only way I've been able to
Speaker 4: sort of take some control back over that particular narrative
Speaker 4: that's just been sort of setting stone for women since
Speaker 4: the beginning of time is to at least express it
Speaker 4: to men so that they can have an awareness of
Speaker 4: it as well.
Speaker 1: My daughter in law is a city planner and she's
Speaker 1: working on women's safety. Thinking about safety, thinking about violence
Speaker 1: is something we do all the time. And you have
Speaker 1: a second movie.
Speaker 4: Yes, So my other film is The Outrun, which Greta
Speaker 4: has say. I was very nervous about her saying it,
Speaker 4: but it's a movie that.
Speaker 2: Nervous because there's no one I wonder more than Grata.
Speaker 1: Did she.
Speaker 5: Produced this movie?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it was part of your grosses and artists
Speaker 3: as a producer as well.
Speaker 4: So the Outrun is based on a memoir of the
Speaker 4: same title by this woman called Amy Liptrop, and it's
Speaker 4: about her recovery from alcoholism. Her relationship with alcohol became
Speaker 4: sort of chaotic and out of control when she moved
Speaker 4: from the Orkney Islands up in Scotland down to London,
Speaker 4: and over the course of a few years she lost
Speaker 4: kind of everything and everyone that was good in her
Speaker 4: life and nothing left and eventually goes into rehab, gets
Speaker 4: clean and unwillingly moves back to the Orkney Islands. And
Speaker 4: it's about that sort of complicated relationship that we all
Speaker 4: have with home and our parents, but also the healing
Speaker 4: that can only come from actually facing your past.
Speaker 2: And it really is this.
Speaker 4: Kind of very intimate but also very epic story of
Speaker 4: just someone healing themselves.
Speaker 2: It's been really special.
Speaker 3: It's very intimate and it's very.
Speaker 1: Watching a film of.
Speaker 2: Addiction and a film of recovery.
Speaker 3: It didn't feel like I was watching an actor act
Speaker 3: a thing. I felt like I was watching how a
Speaker 3: full body and need of you know, whatever the drug is,
Speaker 3: but also the need of the recovery, Like it felt
Speaker 3: embodied in every way. But this scene where you're like
Speaker 3: asking the guy for a light outside of the cafe,
Speaker 3: and you just need a friend, you need anyone, and
Speaker 3: you're so lonely you could almost touch it, and it
Speaker 3: was like a force field outside of her, and you're like,
Speaker 3: and you also understand, of course you want to use
Speaker 3: if you're that lonely. It was just really came through
Speaker 3: the specificness of this very beautiful, very stark place.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Have either of you had to experience and experience
Speaker 1: of people you love had with addiction, Yeah, it was.
Speaker 4: I think the reason why I wanted to make it
Speaker 4: is because I've watched people very close to me go
Speaker 4: through that. Some of them have seen the light and
Speaker 4: some of them have not, and you feel you can't
Speaker 4: help but resent them and the substance. And I think
Speaker 4: I'd carried so much anger around with me my whole life,
Speaker 4: and I really needed to let go of that. And
Speaker 4: I knew that the only way that I could really
Speaker 4: do that, and I still haven't fully done it, but
Speaker 4: the only way that I could begin to understand it
Speaker 4: as if I played someone with that particular addiction alcoholism.
Speaker 2: For me, especially coming.
Speaker 4: From Ireland where it is an issue, it's the same
Speaker 4: in Britain as well.
Speaker 2: It's it's so accessible, it's so a power.
Speaker 1: In a house. I was taught that within a minute
Speaker 1: of somebody entering your house, and it's actually rather nice
Speaker 1: is to say, whether it's somebody coming to fix your dishwasher,
Speaker 1: somebody coming to visit your child, or whatever it is,
Speaker 1: you say, can I get your drink? And it could
Speaker 1: be coffee or tea or something, but it means you're
Speaker 1: stopping what you're doing to look at the person say
Speaker 1: what can I get you? And so it's the kind
Speaker 1: of little thing in the back of my mind. But
Speaker 1: you also realize that a drink is also walking into
Speaker 1: a house and being offered a glass of wine or
Speaker 1: a gever it is, or.
Speaker 2: It's people on their own at the end of a hard.
Speaker 1: Day and they're like, oh, I'll just just have a
Speaker 1: bottle to myself.
Speaker 2: And then suddenly that turns into two or three. And
Speaker 2: it's so it can be so easily.
Speaker 4: Concealed alcoholism, I think in particular, and I find that
Speaker 4: incredibly dangerous. And I've gone through stages in my life
Speaker 4: where I've set I've been like, I'm not religious, but
Speaker 4: I soundly religious. When I say this, I'm like, it's
Speaker 4: the devil. It's like the devil incarnet. It just it
Speaker 4: infects everything that it touches. And I hated it. And
Speaker 4: I wouldn't say I've got total closure after experiencing bringing
Speaker 4: someone to life with that particular addiction, but it certainly
Speaker 4: helped me to understand, like the science behind it, the
Speaker 4: effect that it has on the brain, so that at
Speaker 4: least I have something that I can hold on to
Speaker 4: when you feel like it's your fault, but that person
Speaker 4: won't quit that it's a reflection on you, and of
Speaker 4: course it isn't, and I think that's You're right. That's
Speaker 4: why it would be so soul destroying if you're a kid,
Speaker 4: or a partner or a family member has that issue
Speaker 4: because you can't. There is no reason it has to
Speaker 4: come from them. It doesn't matter what you do.
Speaker 3: It's I remember a line that Noah and I wrote
Speaker 3: at one point, which is apropos at this moment in
Speaker 3: this movie Mistress America, when one of them, the character
Speaker 3: I play, wants to open a restaurant.
Speaker 1: But she she won't.
Speaker 3: Like you just sort of know she won't.
Speaker 1: She's not.
Speaker 3: Trustworthy anyway. She's asking for money from a guy she
Speaker 3: used to date. And he said, having a restaurant.
Speaker 2: It's it's like having a kid with a drug problem.
Speaker 2: It's really straining. Yeah, do you find he.
Speaker 5: Says, it's so callously in this moment, But just I
Speaker 5: also my friends who luckily, thank god, been through recovery
Speaker 5: and are like healthy. I've told them to see the outrun.
Speaker 3: You know, you don't want to say the wrong thing,
Speaker 3: but anyway, really connected.
Speaker 1: We always end this with comfort. We go to eat
Speaker 1: because of your mother sharing her love for you every night,
Speaker 1: about feeding your husband, about going in the garden. But
Speaker 1: food is also something for we reach for when we
Speaker 1: need comfort. Is there a food that you would go
Speaker 1: to for comfort?
Speaker 4: It's so obvious if I do, say mash potatoes, So
Speaker 4: don't say no.
Speaker 1: Say it it so comfort for you would be okay,
Speaker 1: mashed potatoes. Does it remind you of home?
Speaker 4: There's a few things, okay, okay, so there's there's mash potatoes. Also,
Speaker 4: when when I was a kid, Mommy used to I
Speaker 4: want to do this more. Actually she used to put
Speaker 4: broccoli in with the mashed potatoes and some butter and
Speaker 4: mix it together, and that was like, honestly the most
Speaker 4: delicious thing ever. But also penny Ala vodka for me,
Speaker 4: which I think originated at Alkie Batola.
Speaker 2: Right, so I've gone there.
Speaker 1: Isn't it great? And Florence just outside.
Speaker 2: Yes, I love it so much.
Speaker 4: I actually don't want to tell people about it because
Speaker 4: then everyone will no, no, you talk about the best
Speaker 4: restaurant ever.
Speaker 2: So Pennae Ala vodka for me.
Speaker 4: That would probably be my final meal, I would say,
Speaker 4: with a bowl of mashed potatoes on the side.
Speaker 1: Do you make it yourself?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've started to make do you make you know what?
Speaker 4: I don't make mashed potatoes as much as I should,
Speaker 4: but I'm going to make more of it. And I
Speaker 4: want to put some parmesan in with it as well,
Speaker 4: so it's kind of chewiness.
Speaker 2: And but I'm starting to use butter.
Speaker 1: More and more. We've had lots of those conversations about
Speaker 1: butter with lovely.
Speaker 4: Salty yellow butter. That's what makes me sad about America.
Speaker 4: All the butter is quite white.
Speaker 3: I always buy the I always buy the salt and
Speaker 3: carry gold, which is nice and yellow, which is Irish.
Speaker 2: That's the best butter, and they have it at Cinderella.
Speaker 2: Someone said that to me recently.
Speaker 4: She was like, if you want to eat the best food,
Speaker 4: Eat what your granny ate eat.
Speaker 2: Proper whole foods, proper butter, whole milk.
Speaker 4: I've gone back to Holts, unhomogenized on pasteurized milk.
Speaker 1: So it would be it would be mashed potatoes. And
Speaker 1: how do you make your penny?
Speaker 4: Following a recipe with that one? So I've only done
Speaker 4: it a couple of times. It's got a tiny bit
Speaker 4: of chili in it, I think.
Speaker 1: And tomato tomato with cream.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very simple. I was telling your chef as well
Speaker 4: about that. Marchella has anne simple tomato sauce.
Speaker 1: Y do that.
Speaker 2: I do that all the time, and when I'm away, Jack.
Speaker 4: Is useless when it comes to cooking for himself. So
Speaker 4: I'm like the tin of tomato in the pot, put
Speaker 4: the butter in, chop the onion in half, sprinkle salt,
Speaker 4: simmare it for forty.
Speaker 2: You're good to go.
Speaker 1: Well, that was a great talk. We're going to do
Speaker 1: more together. You're going to come and cook in the
Speaker 1: River Cafe next time you bring your mom, bring my mom,
Speaker 1: bring your mom.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you, I'd be a pleasure you