Speaker 1: You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: Ask Gray Findes about Carrie Mulligan and he will tell
Speaker 1: you she is a brilliant actor and was a uniquely
Speaker 1: brilliant partner in their movie The Dick. Ask Lord Michaels
Speaker 1: about her hosting Saturday Night Live, and he will say
Speaker 1: she was one of the best in almost fifty years.
Speaker 1: Ask David Hare, the writer and Robert Fox, the producer
Speaker 1: of their place, Starlight, and they will talk about her
Speaker 1: killer ambition for authenticity and excellence and her kindness to
Speaker 1: everyone involved. To day, twenty four hours after being nominated
Speaker 1: for an Academy Award for Best Actress in the movie Maestro,
Speaker 1: she is here in the River Cafe kitchen cooking scallops
Speaker 1: and sage with River Cafe executive chef Shawn Owen. And
Speaker 1: I know that when this morning is over and all
Speaker 1: of you ask me about Carrie Mulligan, absolutely and for
Speaker 1: sure the answer will be I love her so nice.
Speaker 1: So kay you just we're cooking the recipe which I
Speaker 1: would love you to read for scallops, and then we'll
Speaker 1: talk about everything.
Speaker 2: Eight medium scallops olive oil, sea salt.
Speaker 1: And freshly ground pepper.
Speaker 2: One tablespoon salted capers prepared, half a bunch of sage
Speaker 2: leave stalks removed, one lemon. Brush a frying pan with
Speaker 2: a little oil and place over high heat. When smoking,
Speaker 2: add the scallops. Season with a little salt and pepper
Speaker 2: and cook for two minutes on one side. Turn the
Speaker 2: scallops over and immediately add the capers and sage leaves,
Speaker 2: plus a little extra olive oil so the sage leaves fry.
Speaker 2: Cook for a further two minutes, shaking the pan constantly,
Speaker 2: Squeeze the juice of the lemon and serve.
Speaker 3: Get the pan really hot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, put the scollops around the and see.
Speaker 3: Them, and then let's check in a turning minute more.
Speaker 3: I'm trying to think about a scolet and thinking about
Speaker 3: what's delicious about a scolp?
Speaker 1: Is it a texture as it because it's.
Speaker 3: A very delicate sweetness.
Speaker 2: I think it's a sweetness because I'm funny with texture
Speaker 2: some things. And yeah, I think it's the sweetness of something. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and usually a pretty good thought, right, yes, exactly exactly.
Speaker 1: How long is this? Then? I reckon two or three minutes?
Speaker 2: And then that's it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then sweeze a bit of lemon in now good
Speaker 2: old generous amounts of olive oil, isn't there?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I love that. Well, we're on pips of it here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but it's very good.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, easy, easy.
Speaker 3: It's about getting the right amount of color on and
Speaker 3: letting them sit. And then you know you can put
Speaker 3: instead of lemon juice, you can put vinegar. Yeah, instead
Speaker 3: of capers, you can put actuvies. Instead of saved you
Speaker 3: can put that as all.
Speaker 2: That's delicious, cool, Thank you.
Speaker 1: So much so having cooked it? What was that like? Oh,
Speaker 1: it's so well.
Speaker 2: It's one of those things that I would have. I'd
Speaker 2: love to do at home, but I feel like you
Speaker 2: need to do it when people are already there because
Speaker 2: you want to give it, you know, to people straight away.
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have the confidence with that, but I think
Speaker 2: I would have a good at now good. I think
Speaker 2: it's about having really good scollops. And I always love
Speaker 2: when you actually are in a kitchen you see how
Speaker 2: much olive oil goes and everything A little bit of olive.
Speaker 1: Oil, a lot of oil. Yeah, And so when you
Speaker 1: say that you would like to do it for dinner,
Speaker 1: for people coming to dinner. But then there is that separation,
Speaker 1: isn't there where you're cooking and they're there. Do you
Speaker 1: like to cook around people or do you like our
Speaker 1: house we have.
Speaker 2: It's like a farmhouse kitchen. So we have a big
Speaker 2: we don't have like a cooking isle or separate. It's
Speaker 2: sort of a one big room, sort of a big table.
Speaker 2: It was an old chemistry lab table and that's in
Speaker 2: the middle of the room. And then so everything kind
Speaker 2: of you cook around My husband is more. He does
Speaker 2: it more than like he does all the big event
Speaker 2: cooking like Christmases and you know, Sunday races and things
Speaker 2: like that. I'll do if we've got you know, ten people,
Speaker 2: I'll do like a big stew or a big.
Speaker 1: Castrole or something like that.
Speaker 2: But he's he's good at knocking stuff up, like we
Speaker 2: have barely anything in the fridge, and he can make
Speaker 2: something out of that, whereas I need a very clear.
Speaker 1: And yeah, you have cooked on stage? Was it? That's
Speaker 1: just it? No, it was west End? What was it
Speaker 1: a first room west End?
Speaker 2: It was first in the west End.
Speaker 1: Yeah, David was telling me this morning about cooking spaghetti
Speaker 1: bollonnaise on stage. And he was saying that Stephen Dawdry
Speaker 1: being Stephen Daldry, insisted on having a chef come from
Speaker 1: somewhere who was one of the great chefs to tell
Speaker 1: me about cooking. Answer. Was it the first time you'd
Speaker 1: ever had to cook on stage? Yeah? Eating onstage? Really?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I would I would cook it in the
Speaker 2: first half and I would eat it in the second half.
Speaker 1: What was it like?
Speaker 2: It was very basic, but there was a musicality to
Speaker 2: the way. So much of it was cooking. It was
Speaker 2: one thing, but also fitting it in because she's cooking
Speaker 2: in what turns into an enormous row, and so much
Speaker 2: of the physicality of the cooking was in the sort
Speaker 2: of smashing of garlic and chopping, and you know, so
Speaker 2: I had to be cooking but also furious, but also
Speaker 2: controlled that I didn't cut my finger off whilest I
Speaker 2: was furious. So and there was a lot of kind
Speaker 2: of comedy to you know, the way that Bill would
Speaker 2: come over and sort of aunts and judge the way
Speaker 2: that it was being cooked. And you know, putting the
Speaker 2: oil in first or not putting the oil in. That
Speaker 2: was one of the little gags. But yeah, and the
Speaker 2: theater would fill with the smell of cooking, And so
Speaker 2: I used to say to anyone who was coming to
Speaker 2: see it, particularly my dad, you have to eat before
Speaker 2: you come, because if you come and you watch a
Speaker 2: play that I mean, it's like for two and a
Speaker 2: half three hours long, you know, and you're hungry, you're
Speaker 2: going to hate it, And that's so unfair of us.
Speaker 1: Was it for real or was it mostly theater? Was
Speaker 1: it it was totally edible.
Speaker 2: I mean, it probably wasn't great, but it was you know,
Speaker 2: I ate it and it was tasted fine to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I about eating on stage.
Speaker 2: When I did it in New York, I was pregnant,
Speaker 2: and I did go through a phase of feeling incredibly
Speaker 2: unwell and nothing was good to eat.
Speaker 1: So for a while it wasn't.
Speaker 2: I was taking very small nibbles in the second half,
Speaker 2: but no, generally I kind of loved it.
Speaker 1: And in film there are also scenes of you eating, yes,
Speaker 1: and drive in the diner and not eating, and so
Speaker 1: most recently in Maestrow, which I saw at the opening
Speaker 1: night in your phenomenal great movie and very compelling. You know,
Speaker 1: I grew up with the Bernstein's, you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: know them, but I mean as as major figures in
Speaker 1: our lives from not just West Side Story and his concerts,
Speaker 1: but their their involvement in social politics, for which they
Speaker 1: were hugely maligned, which was unfair by Tom Wolfe for
Speaker 1: the radical chic because and especially your character Felicia was
Speaker 1: really involved in the civil rights struggle in the Vietnam War.
Speaker 1: And as a character, I thought that it wasn't so what,
Speaker 1: it wasn't really that much in the film. But she
Speaker 1: was formidable.
Speaker 2: She was, and it was at one point a whole
Speaker 2: radical chic scene. Yeah. Yeah, but I think you know
Speaker 2: the thing, the script evolved David five years. But yeah,
Speaker 2: and she wasn't actually when I went to I went
Speaker 2: to Chile and I met her family there and they
Speaker 2: talked about you know, she was active from a young age,
Speaker 2: from when she was a teenager in Santiago. She waschet.
Speaker 1: I wonder whether he was then and Chile had that
Speaker 1: been before I think before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But she was very but she was a real homemaker,
Speaker 2: you know, she she didn't cook. I don't think I
Speaker 2: think she had Julia Vega. She had people in her
Speaker 2: life that were but she everything was. They called her
Speaker 2: the living the dining room, at the apartment of the Dakota,
Speaker 2: the French restaurant, because every time anyone came, it was
Speaker 2: beautifully kind of table every tablescape was unbelievable, the flowers
Speaker 2: that were brought in, and I think every kind of
Speaker 2: environment where she was a host was very kind of
Speaker 2: beautifully put on. And she talks about being responsible for
Speaker 2: the kitchen of life, and that everything was you know,
Speaker 2: it was ordering the best produced and ordering the best
Speaker 2: flowers and ordering you know, that was a big part
Speaker 2: of her life, particularly in New York, also upstate, I think,
Speaker 2: but in New York that was a big part of
Speaker 2: her kind of she loved fostering this kind of beautiful environment.
Speaker 1: What was the filming like, what was the experience of
Speaker 1: doing that movie?
Speaker 2: It was amazing, I mean it was. It was the
Speaker 2: closest I think to a part that I had played.
Speaker 2: I always sort of felt like I had played you know,
Speaker 2: Nina and the Seagull and you know, Kira and Skylight
Speaker 2: and doing this monologue of girls and boys. I had
Speaker 2: these kind of kind of epic roles on stage, and
Speaker 2: I felt when I read Felicia that she had that breadth.
Speaker 2: So she had that kind of you know it felt
Speaker 2: like a kind of Chekhov all. It felt like she's
Speaker 2: got this huge journey and she starts and she actually
Speaker 2: not dissimilar to Nina in some ways, because she does
Speaker 2: start as this actress with this burning ambition and as
Speaker 2: disillusioned and you know, driven to you know too well
Speaker 2: in my opinion, not madness, but driven to sort of
Speaker 2: to a completely different place by the end of the
Speaker 2: story and having.
Speaker 1: Become a completely different person.
Speaker 2: And I feel like Felicia really has that huge you know,
Speaker 2: she came to New York, you know, bright as a
Speaker 2: button and full of hope and ambition, and you really
Speaker 2: do get a sense of her being worn down by
Speaker 2: her experience. So just the character on its own was amazing.
Speaker 2: The way that Bradley works is so unique and so
Speaker 2: and I loved completely different experience, nothing like I'd ever
Speaker 2: done before, completely, you know, and I think because he's
Speaker 2: in it as well. But you know, the most amazing
Speaker 2: set where you don't feel like you're in a film set,
Speaker 2: feel like you're walking on stage.
Speaker 1: And that was right. Where where did we shot.
Speaker 2: We shot in Tanglewood for the first week, which was amazing.
Speaker 2: Then we shot in New York and then We were
Speaker 2: on a sound stage in Brooklyn for a minute, and
Speaker 2: then we had a break and then we shot Ely
Speaker 2: Cathedral and we shot in a sound stage in London
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I in terms of again about eating, in
Speaker 1: food and nourishment, this is a character who wastes away,
Speaker 1: who starts disappearing, and the way you conveyed her fragility
Speaker 1: and his emotions, dealing with you know, her husband's the effect, well,
Speaker 1: dealing with the effect and the family. And so to
Speaker 1: see this strong woman in the beginning that you played
Speaker 1: and then how was that for you when when having
Speaker 1: to show someone dying a terrible disease is Yeah, it
Speaker 1: was I think, you know.
Speaker 2: We we shot her younger stuff right at the beginning
Speaker 2: of the shoot, and then we jumped straight to a
Speaker 2: scene after she's diagnosed with cancer. And it was the
Speaker 2: first time I think I played anyone over a span
Speaker 2: of so many years. So she was the first week
Speaker 2: it was sort of a younger wig in black and white,
Speaker 2: and then the following Monday I had prosthetics on and
Speaker 2: I think.
Speaker 1: I was surprised.
Speaker 2: Actually, I thought that there would be a lot more.
Speaker 2: I'd have to like map it a lot more but
Speaker 2: it was interesting once I was in the prosthetics and
Speaker 2: the costume of that point in her life. It's funny
Speaker 2: what it does looking at yourself in the mirror when
Speaker 2: you know, we did the makeup for when she's right
Speaker 2: at the end of her life. Took about four and
Speaker 2: a half hours and was prosthetics and lots of painting
Speaker 2: in and these incredible contact lenses that took out the
Speaker 2: sort of white around my eyes. And when I had
Speaker 2: the head scarf on, and.
Speaker 1: You know, you look in the mirror and you do
Speaker 1: feel different.
Speaker 2: It is an odd thing to look at Also, because
Speaker 2: we weren't trying to make her look I wasn't trying
Speaker 2: to look like Felicia, because Felicia isn't a well known
Speaker 2: face in the way that Bradley needed to look like Lenny.
Speaker 1: We I just looked like myself.
Speaker 2: And so, you know, I remember saying to Duncan, who
Speaker 2: was doing my prosthetics and Sean Gregg makeup artist, I said,
Speaker 2: is this basically a time machine, like you know, without
Speaker 2: the illness before the illness? Is this essentially you know?
Speaker 2: And I do look.
Speaker 1: Exactly like my mom.
Speaker 2: Yeah, in the palm court, you know, I look exactly
Speaker 2: how my mom does, and so it was it kind
Speaker 2: of interesting. Yeah, the whole thing was very interesting, But
Speaker 2: when it came to the six stuff, it was a
Speaker 2: lot of it was based on Bradley's experience of his
Speaker 2: father who had cancer and pastway accounts, so and I
Speaker 2: knew that, you know, some of the detail that had
Speaker 2: been written in folding up the napkins was something that
Speaker 2: Bradley's dad did, and lots of it was so lots
Speaker 2: of I've felt constantly aware of him. And then also
Speaker 2: when people would see me in the makeup, and I think,
Speaker 2: you know, if you've had anyone in your life who's
Speaker 2: been through an illness that has affected them like that
Speaker 2: physically and visibly, you know. I remember an ad sort
Speaker 2: of like bursting into tears because she just sort of
Speaker 2: it reminded her too much of someone that she loved,
Speaker 2: and so I felt just really determined to not to
Speaker 2: get it right, but also that if there was something
Speaker 2: about the sort of general sense of everybody. By that point,
Speaker 2: we just had the most incredible crew. There was so amazing.
Speaker 2: It really felt like that it didn't when you walked
Speaker 2: on set. It wasn't like this actor has this hard
Speaker 2: thing to do. It was like, oh, this person's not well.
Speaker 2: And that was an incredible kind of feeling. And that's
Speaker 2: how the set felt that whole week when we showed
Speaker 2: you No, who didn't it?
Speaker 1: What was that like?
Speaker 2: I mean I ate at home and I ate, but
Speaker 2: when I was at work now, I just yeah, because
Speaker 2: there was you know, and I remember the physical the
Speaker 2: way that she remember Mot Bridges, our costume designer, brought
Speaker 2: this little shawl that goes over her shoulders when she's
Speaker 2: receiving visitors, and it's so it was my grandmother. My my
Speaker 2: grandmother had dementia. She didn't but she did lose lots
Speaker 2: of weight and she did get you know, as she
Speaker 2: was unable to feed herself, you know, she it was
Speaker 2: you know, it was constantly trying to get her to
Speaker 2: intake nutrition. But I remember the way her shoulders kind
Speaker 2: of came forward and it was so highlighted by this
Speaker 2: this shawl that was over her. And so when he
Speaker 2: brought that shawl, that sense of fragility and it was
Speaker 2: just so it just I felt it, you know, just
Speaker 2: it was so kind of eerie. How you know that
Speaker 2: physicality is just so familiar.
Speaker 1: Did you know the river cafe has a sharp It's
Speaker 1: full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks
Speaker 1: and then in napkins kitchen ware, toad bags with our signatures,
Speaker 1: glasses from Venice, chocolates from Turin. You can find us
Speaker 1: right next door to the River Cafe in London or
Speaker 1: online at shop the River Cafe dot co UK. Growing up,
Speaker 1: you grew up in a hotel, is that right? For
Speaker 1: the first we grew up in Yeah, we lived in hotels.
Speaker 2: I was almost eight. My father was a hotel manager
Speaker 2: for Intercontinental for my whole childhood until I was sort
Speaker 2: of eighteen, so I was born. I think we were
Speaker 2: at the.
Speaker 1: Brittannia when I was born.
Speaker 2: My dad was running the Brittannia hotel, and then in London, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then the Yeah yeah, yeah so there and then
Speaker 2: the Mayfair. And then we moved to Germany to Hanover
Speaker 2: and Dusseldorf and he ran hotels there, and then we
Speaker 2: moved back to London. He ran I can't remember in
Speaker 2: the hotel he then he was at the Churchill in
Speaker 2: Portman Square, so he moved around those and he also
Speaker 2: ran hotels in Vienna and Frankfurt.
Speaker 1: Yeah did you but you actually lived in the hotel.
Speaker 2: We lived in the hotel till I was eight.
Speaker 1: When you were a bit like Elowise. Do you remember
Speaker 1: that book Allowas? Did you even know that growing up
Speaker 1: in the plaza? Would you run around the hotels?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Fine, what was that like living in a hotel?
Speaker 2: It was amazing. I mean it was you know, it's
Speaker 2: kind of all we knew. But I look back and
Speaker 2: I think, oh wow, that was kind of an extraordinary
Speaker 2: way to grow up. And my brother and I were
Speaker 2: certainly you know, we would sort of roll around with
Speaker 2: the the maids, you know, going into people's rooms after
Speaker 2: they checked out, and sort of you know, I remember
Speaker 2: sort of sitting in the basket with all the sheets,
Speaker 2: you know, with my hands holding on, rolling around the
Speaker 2: corridor and you know, sitting on with my whole body
Speaker 2: wrapped around a hoover, you know, going up and down
Speaker 2: the hallways.
Speaker 1: We were ordering room service.
Speaker 2: Did we had It was like that, you know, they'll
Speaker 2: have a they'll have a little I mean in the
Speaker 2: place at the hotels that we lived in the sort
Speaker 2: of an apartment in the top floor for the manager.
Speaker 2: So we lived in a Yeah, Mum talks about I mean,
Speaker 2: we had our own little mini kitchen and stuff, but
Speaker 2: it was more. Yeah, we didn't do room service, but
Speaker 2: we did have our linen changed. I'm pretty sure someone
Speaker 2: always says that was a massive bonus and.
Speaker 1: Has been living at the arm the job and being
Speaker 1: the manager and living there. Yeah, I mean great for
Speaker 1: the hotel to have the manager there. Yeah. Are you
Speaker 1: one of many? Are you?
Speaker 2: No? Just me and my brother?
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2: But we were bilingual because we moved to Germany when
Speaker 2: I was three, and we went to you know, we
Speaker 2: learned German. We went to I went to a German kindergarten,
Speaker 2: Rudolph Stein in kindergarten.
Speaker 1: And then I went to school in Hanover.
Speaker 2: We were with a lot of X you know, with
Speaker 2: military kids, and and then we were in distledor for
Speaker 2: in international school, and then we moved home. So we
Speaker 2: were there. We was the only thing I remember about
Speaker 2: the kitchen because we were, you know, nowhere near the kitchen.
Speaker 2: That was not And I was saying earlier, my dad,
Speaker 2: you know, I think briefly worked in kitchens on his way.
Speaker 2: He worked his way up from kind of collecting glasses
Speaker 2: in a restaurant to being the manager. Yeah, and he
Speaker 2: so whenever he cooks. Generally I exit the building because
Speaker 2: it's just not what is it like, he just likes
Speaker 2: things ordered and the way that they and you know,
Speaker 2: for us to sort of come in and sort of
Speaker 2: casually start munching on something, his heart was not not
Speaker 2: part of it.
Speaker 1: So that, yeah, it's but my.
Speaker 2: Memory of one of my birthday parties when I was
Speaker 2: little was at the hotel in Disseldorf, and you know,
Speaker 2: the pastry chef made a bunch of dough. We were
Speaker 2: all making little dollies out of dough, and then they
Speaker 2: took them off and cooked them in the kitchen and
Speaker 2: brought them back. And the birthday cakes, you know, when
Speaker 2: we lived in hotels were always you know, those very
Speaker 2: elaborate kind of I feel like they always had liquor
Speaker 2: in them.
Speaker 1: They always had like.
Speaker 2: A bit of booze. It like properly kiddie birthday cakes,
Speaker 2: and they had like very beautiful writing in icing and
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. There was always such a
Speaker 2: sense of occasion in hotels. It's always like there's a
Speaker 2: big display for Christmas or there's a big you know,
Speaker 2: it was like there was always this sort of sense
Speaker 2: of there's a sort of event happening. But I always felt,
Speaker 2: really I like being nomadic. I don't mind, you know,
Speaker 2: I like being in hotel tells I'm not someone who
Speaker 2: I don't need to bring. You know, some people sort
Speaker 2: of need to bring stuff with them to make wherever
Speaker 2: they are feel like home.
Speaker 1: Carries with her.
Speaker 2: Do you know the only time I ate lunch here
Speaker 2: was with Tracy.
Speaker 1: Tracy she described, you know that she I think she's
Speaker 1: ever ordered room service. She would always, you know, I'd
Speaker 1: go out and find something and take her food on
Speaker 1: the plane or take an object. And as you say,
Speaker 1: I love hotels so much that I actually don't like
Speaker 1: when I'm upgraded to a suite because it reminds me
Speaker 1: too much of home. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I like the
Speaker 1: confines of a hotel whom you can find everything. You know,
Speaker 1: where your book is, you know where everything is. I
Speaker 1: always thought that maybe I'd be one of those women
Speaker 1: who age, you know, Richard be in a state at
Speaker 1: Clarages for the rest of, you know, of our days.
Speaker 1: I had said to him, if we saw our house,
Speaker 1: how many nights do you think we'd get in claritges.
Speaker 1: He's like probably six. And do you think there was
Speaker 1: a performance that you had to behave in a certain
Speaker 1: way with strangers.
Speaker 2: I think so, yeah, yeah, we had you know, we
Speaker 2: met people who were staying at the hotel sometimes and
Speaker 2: there was a real kind of day. It felt like
Speaker 2: being a bit of a like a diplomat's stater or something.
Speaker 2: You know, someone would come and stay at the hotel
Speaker 2: and you would greet them.
Speaker 1: You know, did that prepare you, do you think for
Speaker 1: acting in a certain way? I think yeah, perhaps.
Speaker 2: I think also moving around constantly, kind of being the
Speaker 2: new kid and meetings. The time I was eight, we
Speaker 2: had moved. You know, I'd been at a I think
Speaker 2: three places in Germany, three four schools, no three so
Speaker 2: nursery and then two schools and then home to a
Speaker 2: convent school in Buckinghamshire. And then when I was eleven
Speaker 2: I moved again, and then when I was thirteen I
Speaker 2: moved again. So we were so I think I was
Speaker 2: always kind of used to being new and having to
Speaker 2: introduce myself adapt to people, and you know that sort
Speaker 2: of thing.
Speaker 1: What was Cherman food like, do you have a memory
Speaker 1: of it or did you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, lots of quite meat meat based food. I mean
Speaker 2: we you know, we were amongst kind of lots of
Speaker 2: Brits as well, so but we spent we were amazingly lucky.
Speaker 2: We got to go skiing in Austria in our holidays
Speaker 2: and things, we you know, spent lots of We had
Speaker 2: lots of casia, keaza, spetzel and you know venus nitzel
Speaker 2: and delicious like warm, brothy things to be able to
Speaker 2: warm up. But yeah, I think we you know, because
Speaker 2: it was also an international hotel. It was you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't we were if I was eating stuff from
Speaker 2: it wasn't necessarily German cuisine or anything.
Speaker 1: I usually asked people about their families and growing up,
Speaker 1: and restaurants were restaurants, But in your case, I often
Speaker 1: asked if restaurants were a special occasion, which was the tooth.
Speaker 1: In my family, we went out to restaurants for somebody's
Speaker 1: birthday and somebody's anniversary or something great had happened and
Speaker 1: you'd celebrate a restaurant. Here we see people just coming
Speaker 1: out for dinner with their kids all the time, and
Speaker 1: maybe it was just more for you, that was that
Speaker 1: something that.
Speaker 4: Was just.
Speaker 2: I suppose that I don't really remember going to restaurants
Speaker 2: at all. I don't remember going to nice you know,
Speaker 2: white tablecloth restaurants. Ever, with my we would go to
Speaker 2: there was a pizza place in Duszledorf that we would
Speaker 2: go to, but like really a hole on the wall
Speaker 2: kind of pizza place, and that was sort of a
Speaker 2: treat that we would go there. I don't think we
Speaker 2: went to I remember what for the Millennium my dad
Speaker 2: was running the Intercontinental in Vienna and there was a
Speaker 2: big Millennium meal there and I was fourteen and fourteen
Speaker 2: fifteen I think, yeah, fourteen, and my best friend came
Speaker 2: with me and we bought dresses, you know, for millennium
Speaker 2: and we sat and it was a proper white tablecloth,
Speaker 2: seven course meal thing, and that was very That was
Speaker 2: a big, big deal. So I don't think we did necessarily.
Speaker 2: Although when I was when we moved home and we
Speaker 2: were living in you know, Buckinghamshire, we used to go
Speaker 2: if there was anything to celebrate, we'd go to Mister
Speaker 2: Poone's the Chinese restaurant and go and have big Chinese
Speaker 2: and we did that kind of for years.
Speaker 1: Your parents cook for you, yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean Mum's always you know, she couldn't turn her
Speaker 2: hand to anything. She was never a sort of passionate cook,
Speaker 2: I think because Dad was the cook. So if there
Speaker 2: was meals that were cooked, it would be Dad, you know.
Speaker 2: And Mum, my grandmother was a was a wonderful Yeah.
Speaker 2: I loved baking. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So where did she live?
Speaker 2: So she was my mother's Welsh So she was in Carmarthenshire.
Speaker 2: So and every time I went to her for any
Speaker 2: kind of length of time, we were just bake and bacon, bake.
Speaker 1: Oh well everything.
Speaker 2: Welsh cakes, famously delicious Welsh cakes.
Speaker 1: Welsh cakes, that's don't tell Sean, I asked you this
Speaker 1: because I've lived in this country for.
Speaker 2: Well if you weren't it. But they're like their little
Speaker 2: mini sort of flat cake with raisins in and like
Speaker 2: a scone. Yeah, like a sort of flatter scone. But
Speaker 2: she'd make amazing Welsh cakes. A cherry almond cake, a
Speaker 2: delicious cherry almond cake that just got better the longer
Speaker 2: you left it in the tin. You know.
Speaker 1: It was that kind of thing. I know that you're
Speaker 1: you're from going from school. You knew that acting was
Speaker 1: going to be an essential part of your life. Yeah,
Speaker 1: can you tell me how that happened? It was all
Speaker 1: I wanted to do. From a young age, but I
Speaker 1: didn't think of it really as a career until I
Speaker 1: was probably twelve. You know, maybe I wanted to do
Speaker 1: musical theater. That was the big you know. That's my
Speaker 1: mum and I went to go and see every musical.
Speaker 1: Every time we could go into London, we'd go and
Speaker 1: see musical. We went to New York together, just the
Speaker 1: two of us, and went saw did you Cabaret? Was
Speaker 1: the original? There's some Mendes Studio fifty four. We saw that.
Speaker 2: I told this to him the other day, but I
Speaker 2: saw Kevin Bacon in a one man show at the
Speaker 2: Walterkerr Theater. I forget the name of it. But I
Speaker 2: then later years later went and did The Seagull at
Speaker 2: the Walter curR and it was a really crazy kind
Speaker 2: of full circle thing. So I was I was sort
Speaker 2: of wanted to do musical theater. Then was slowly sort
Speaker 2: of realizing that that was quite a big job in
Speaker 2: terms of dance and song. And I wasn't a dancer,
Speaker 2: and I kind of was a choir singer, but not
Speaker 2: a singer singer. Was not enormously interested in film so much.
Speaker 2: I mean I loved movies. I loved you know, my
Speaker 2: favorite all of my favorite films like Indiana Jones, Last Crusade,
Speaker 2: and you know, I liked sort of Spielberg like proper movies.
Speaker 2: And then I slowly realized that it was more kind
Speaker 2: of theater that I was probably just straight theater just
Speaker 2: in place. So it was when I was at I
Speaker 2: auditioned for a bunch of drama schools basically and didn't
Speaker 2: get into any of them. But that was my first
Speaker 2: sort of big, sort of attempt to do to kind
Speaker 2: of make it a job, which didn't get very well.
Speaker 2: But then I found another kind of way in luckily
Speaker 2: actually right around the cord from me here, to go
Speaker 2: to Riverside Studios to do Young Blood Theater Workshop, which
Speaker 2: was an amazing I don't know if it still happens,
Speaker 2: but it was an incredible experience. It was once a week,
Speaker 2: I did it for months, where you would come together
Speaker 2: with a bunch of other actors of a similar age.
Speaker 2: But I'd ever acted really with boys before, you know,
Speaker 2: because I've been in an all girls school and for
Speaker 2: people from all different walks of life. And it was
Speaker 2: a lot of improvisation, a lot of just you would
Speaker 2: just be sitting all in the circle on the floor
Speaker 2: and then you would suddenly have to be in the
Speaker 2: middle of the room doing a scene about something and
Speaker 2: it was just a real I loved it and made
Speaker 2: really good friends and we did I think one or
Speaker 2: two little productions there, and then an audition for a
Speaker 2: new version of Pride and Prejudice and that was my
Speaker 2: first job.
Speaker 1: So that so I knew we were working in pubs. Did
Speaker 1: you did you have to have a job that wasn't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I left school and that was you know, I
Speaker 2: had not gone to rom school, so I was taking
Speaker 2: a gap year and it was in that year that
Speaker 2: I worked in the pubs.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember the food and it was like proper
Speaker 2: just pubs.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I mean I worked on a barge, like a restaurant
Speaker 2: sort of barge in Marlowe, but I was serving, I
Speaker 2: was never making. And then I worked in two pubs
Speaker 2: at the same time, just picking up shifts in the
Speaker 2: in whichever one. But I'd liked I liked the sort
Speaker 2: of kind of energy of it. I think I also
Speaker 2: quite like being in charge of giving people drinks. That
Speaker 2: I was behind this bar and I was eighteen, I
Speaker 2: probably looked about fifteen, and yet I was sort of
Speaker 2: pulling pints for you know, big burly men, and it
Speaker 2: felt kind of like quite a powerful position to be
Speaker 2: And yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a performance, isn't it an acting and cooking?
Speaker 1: You know? I think the reason I always say that
Speaker 1: a lot of actors like to work, of course it
Speaker 1: suits them, you know, to work part time in a
Speaker 1: restaurant if they're trying to pursue their career, is that
Speaker 1: there is a lot of drama in a restaurant. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the energy. Do you remember what you ate in
Speaker 1: those years? When I talked to Emily Blunt, it was,
Speaker 1: you know, hamburger after hamburger after hamburger, and eating and
Speaker 1: eating and eating. She ate, so she would describe, even
Speaker 1: when she had small parts, that she would have two
Speaker 1: hamburgers before going on stage. Ye wouldn't be in school.
Speaker 1: But do you remember when you were away from or
Speaker 1: did you live with your parents when.
Speaker 2: You were I didn't. I'm pride and prejudice. I moved
Speaker 2: out for that job, and I do remember that we
Speaker 2: were all in corsets, and I remember for the first
Speaker 2: and it was a very lovely production. It actually set
Speaker 2: me up for disappointment future productions because it was so
Speaker 2: we stayed in such nice hotels and the catering were
Speaker 2: so lovely, and I remember for the first month or
Speaker 2: so we had like really delicious like snacks, but you know,
Speaker 2: yummy cakes and biscuits and like delicious granolla y things
Speaker 2: that we could nibble on. And after a while they
Speaker 2: had to take out our costumes because we'd all and
Speaker 2: our courses had to get sort of loosen to because
Speaker 2: we'd all've.
Speaker 1: Been having a lovely time.
Speaker 2: And then I moved into a flat with two boys
Speaker 2: in Highgate and I think I ate you know, literally
Speaker 2: pot noodles. Whilst I did theater. I also got into
Speaker 2: a habit of having to have a double espresso before
Speaker 2: I did a show. I didn't eat really before the
Speaker 2: play I did. I did a play at the Royal
Speaker 2: Court straight after which it was called forty Winks. It
Speaker 2: was a Kevin Elliott play. It was a real shock
Speaker 2: for me because it went, you know, it was briden Bridges,
Speaker 2: was a summer of you know, real kind of sort
Speaker 2: of basically massive party and the best time and I
Speaker 2: and I and I was delighted. It was Royal Court
Speaker 2: is my favorite theater in the world, hands down. Ten
Speaker 2: million times. But I was playing a narcolepts, a girl
Speaker 2: with narcolepsy who also might have been a victim of rape.
Speaker 1: I mean it was.
Speaker 2: It was really kind of harrowing and and in a
Speaker 2: very kind of surrounded by real heavy weight, incredible actors,
Speaker 2: and I suddenly thought, oh my gosh, this is not
Speaker 2: what I don't know how to do this at all,
Speaker 2: but it was. I was in real kind of just yeah,
Speaker 2: just theater.
Speaker 1: Have an espresso. The espresso started then before yeah, before
Speaker 1: the place.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And I did that for years through theater until probably
Speaker 2: until I did Girls and Boys, and I stopped.
Speaker 1: Well to talk about because that the Royal Court is
Speaker 1: actually our local theater hand car as we live further
Speaker 1: down the keys. What makes you love a theater?
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that was my first theater, so
Speaker 2: that was special. Then I went back there and did
Speaker 2: The Seagull when I was twenty one Christopher Hampton Ian Rickson,
Speaker 2: and and that was just completely I just that that role,
Speaker 2: everything about it, I just and I feel like I
Speaker 2: kind of I don't know, there was something about the
Speaker 2: pre show thing. I would go underneath the I'd go
Speaker 2: down all the way down to the bottom of the
Speaker 2: stairs all the way back up again. I'd run around
Speaker 2: like a mad woman before so because when Nina comes on,
Speaker 2: she's really out of breath, and I wanted to be
Speaker 2: genuinely out of breath. So I would run around, and
Speaker 2: then I would sort of burst onto stage at the
Speaker 2: last minute. And the smell of it, I don't know,
Speaker 2: there was just so much about that theater. Every time
Speaker 2: I step in there, I just feel, oh, I just
Speaker 2: love it it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so you would have your espresso before the play,
Speaker 1: and then and then afterwards, would you do that thing
Speaker 1: of going out to dinner with a bunch of friends,
Speaker 1: people who had seen the play.
Speaker 2: And sometimes I mean, Mason, what I also love about
Speaker 2: the Royal Court is the downstairs. I'd always just go
Speaker 2: down there afterwards and we all would you know. I
Speaker 2: don't remember eating. I remember I remember eating corner sans
Speaker 2: a little corners and a glass of red wine and corn,
Speaker 2: you know, just loads of little corner shechans back then.
Speaker 2: But I don't remember going out for food much. I
Speaker 2: just sort of think I'd probably just go home and
Speaker 2: eat whata bits or something at the end of the night.
Speaker 1: You know, there's money an issue, Yeah, at that time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was, you know, it's it was the minimum
Speaker 2: wage theater, so it was. And I was spending money
Speaker 2: on living in a highgate living and you know, paying
Speaker 2: rent up there, so it wasn't Yeah it was.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I ate quite a lot of cereal.
Speaker 1: Do you remember when food became a kind of measure
Speaker 1: of your success that you could say, I can afford
Speaker 1: to eat well now because I'm I'm earning more money. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think I got really into sushi when I lived
Speaker 2: in New York.
Speaker 1: I was living in New York.
Speaker 2: Probably what was I doing. I was doing theater there,
Speaker 2: but I was also doing a bit of film. I
Speaker 2: did the film Steph McQueen called Shame and and I
Speaker 2: remember I remember.
Speaker 1: Sitting down with.
Speaker 2: You know, my with a financial advisor sort of figuring
Speaker 2: out working in America and working. And he looked at
Speaker 2: my bank's name as he said, oh, you seem to
Speaker 2: have spent lots of money on rent and sushi.
Speaker 1: I was like, that was pretty good. That's what we did.
Speaker 1: We lived in Paris. It was the same thing those days.
Speaker 1: You had check books, and we used to look at
Speaker 1: our checkbook at the end of the mother stubs and
Speaker 1: basically it was all restaurants. When we weren't working, we
Speaker 1: were just eating out, exploring, because you do learn about
Speaker 1: a culture through the food.
Speaker 2: Don't you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. If you like listening to Ruthie's Table for
Speaker 1: would you please make sure to rate and review the
Speaker 1: podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts. Thank you for a moment. I'd
Speaker 1: like to talk about war child, and I think that
Speaker 1: we see the effects of war, and we're seeing it
Speaker 1: right now, aren't we We're seeing it every day. And
Speaker 1: I was wondering what you feel about how that, how
Speaker 1: warchild affected your your views of children in poverty, children
Speaker 1: in danger, and food insecurity.
Speaker 2: So I was doing Skylight and I was I would
Speaker 2: I had this sort of you know, I have a
Speaker 2: little routine that I largely stick to, is I go
Speaker 2: into a theater at sort of five, eat, then have
Speaker 2: a nap for twenty minutes twenty five minutes poundnap, and
Speaker 2: then I wake up and I have my coffee and
Speaker 2: I get.
Speaker 1: Ready for the show.
Speaker 2: But I would listen to the six o'clock news every night,
Speaker 2: and that summer of two thousand and fourteen was was
Speaker 2: terrible for children in conflict, and that a lot of
Speaker 2: the news was about what's happened.
Speaker 1: In twenty fourteen, it.
Speaker 2: Was when the U D's were escaping Isis, and there
Speaker 2: were there was a lot of coverage and lots of
Speaker 2: images on the news. I remember seeing on the news
Speaker 2: as well, all the u ZD refugees were on Sinjo
Speaker 2: Mountain and they were being evacuated, and I remember seeing
Speaker 2: images of you know, mums and dads with their babies
Speaker 2: flinging them into the helicopter to try and get, you know,
Speaker 2: someone to take the baby. And I didn't have kids then,
Speaker 2: but I but I remember thinking, I cannot imagine what
Speaker 2: it takes for you to think in this moment, I'm
Speaker 2: just going to hurl my baby into someone as strange as.
Speaker 1: You know, and hope that they are even caught.
Speaker 2: And what must that take to be in that And
Speaker 2: I was just thinking about a lot, as everyone was.
Speaker 2: And my brother had been in Afghanistan and he had
Speaker 2: encountered this girl's school that had been shut down by
Speaker 2: the Taliban and he'd raised on his own lots of
Speaker 2: money to help this school reopen so the girls could
Speaker 2: get back to school. And he had written to a
Speaker 2: bunch of different endos asking for help kind of facilitating this,
Speaker 2: and War Child were the only ones that had written
Speaker 2: back and made it very easy and so we'll take
Speaker 2: and we don't need a commission, and we'll just we'd
Speaker 2: love to do this and help. And so he had
Speaker 2: come back from Afghanistan saying, like, this charity is really
Speaker 2: interesting and really cool. So I went to the Democratic
Speaker 2: Republic of Congo that October and we went around and
Speaker 2: saw the projects that they were doing, met the children
Speaker 2: they worked with, and at the end of that week,
Speaker 2: I said, I'd really love to kind of focus on this,
Speaker 2: and so they asked me to be an ambassador. I
Speaker 2: went to the Ukraine with them in two thousand and
Speaker 2: twenty two at the end of that year.
Speaker 1: Did you feel that children were Yeah, we're hungry.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's so different in country to countries.
Speaker 2: So in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the thing that
Speaker 2: I noticed was how I mean one of the camps
Speaker 2: that we went to was an IDP camp internally displaced people,
Speaker 2: and they were I mean, it was one of the
Speaker 2: worst places I've ever It was a really, really awful,
Speaker 2: awful camp and two children there the week that we
Speaker 2: visited had died of malnutrition of you know, had starved
Speaker 2: to death. Basically, it's definitely a huge issue in some
Speaker 2: countries and some you know, I remember we were in
Speaker 2: when we were in Budapest, we met some Roma refugee
Speaker 2: toi ildren who were living in a in a homeless shelter.
Speaker 2: They had fled the Ukraine. Their homes had been destroyed
Speaker 2: and they were now living in this sort of homeless
Speaker 2: shelter in Budapest. And there it was you know, they
Speaker 2: were having food provided, but it was food that they
Speaker 2: had no connection to. They had no so the children
Speaker 2: wouldn't eat. You know that you can't make a child
Speaker 2: eat something they've grown up their entire life having the
Speaker 2: And these women who were in the shelter, they said,
Speaker 2: all we want is a kitchen. We just want to
Speaker 2: be able to make food. And their little three year
Speaker 2: olds are just rejecting because they're just first of all traumatized,
Speaker 2: but secondly they've got no So there was there was
Speaker 2: food available, but it was packaged bought in kind of
Speaker 2: you know, for them to be able to make food
Speaker 2: that was familiar and comfortable and inexpensive, but something that
Speaker 2: just for them to be able to provide their own
Speaker 2: and also for these women who are also suffering for
Speaker 2: their own trauma, for the ritual of cooking together as
Speaker 2: a family, for that to be something that they could
Speaker 2: do community wise, I think, you know, would have been
Speaker 2: such a powerful kind of healer for them.
Speaker 1: Times and a communicator.
Speaker 2: When we were in Ukraine, we cooked with these women
Speaker 2: in the in the shelter, and you know, I couldn't
Speaker 2: speak any you know, we were completely you know, we
Speaker 2: had an interpreter, but really it was just peeling potatoes together,
Speaker 2: and you know, it's a wonderful way to communicate with them.
Speaker 1: That story you told of the woman throwing her child
Speaker 1: into the helicopter, I remember, Richard and I were living
Speaker 1: in Paris in the seventies. So you met someone whose
Speaker 1: grandmother had knew that the you know, the Nazis coming
Speaker 1: to take them away from the Jewish ghetto in Paris.
Speaker 1: And she said that she her grandmother and her mother
Speaker 1: were on one side of the barricade caving on a
Speaker 1: train to towards Auschwitz. And they then nanny came rushing
Speaker 1: for them to see because she'd come home and so
Speaker 1: and they threw her. They just threw her physical I mean,
Speaker 1: throwing a child is quite a big thing. And then
Speaker 1: nanny and she never saw our parents again. So we
Speaker 1: think about, you know, the lack of food being denial
Speaker 1: for children and the lack of food being hunger, food
Speaker 1: being a sign of illness or when your illness that
Speaker 1: you're cutting yourself off from food and whatever you know,
Speaker 1: and a sign of frailty. It's also it can work
Speaker 1: the other way, which your food is joyous when we
Speaker 1: cook for our children. It's fun when you cook with
Speaker 1: a hope, a chef. It's fun when your family and
Speaker 1: your husband are there in their farm wanting to eat.
Speaker 1: Maybe you've grown or maybe you've shopped for It also
Speaker 1: is in times it's comfort. It's comfort from an it's
Speaker 1: emotional eating that we don't always eat when we're hungry.
Speaker 1: We eat when we feel something. So my last question
Speaker 1: to you on this beautiful day and being here with
Speaker 1: you and thank you for coming, is to say, Carrie Mulligan,
Speaker 1: if you need comfort, which I hope you don't. I
Speaker 1: hope life is just one joyous experience. But if you
Speaker 1: need comfort, is there a food that you would reach for? Yeah?
Speaker 2: My husband makes well. So when I had my first child.
Speaker 2: We have a friend who lives near us who's sort
Speaker 2: of a baby guru called Rachel Wadelove. She's amazing and
Speaker 2: she basically taught us how to look after babies. Well
Speaker 2: me at least, was work good at already. And she said,
Speaker 2: when your breastfeeding, must have, you know, a slice of cake,
Speaker 2: you know all the time. But also this, she had
Speaker 2: this recipe for this chicken casserole and it was just
Speaker 2: really simple. But the crust on the top was wheatabix
Speaker 2: and cheddar cheese.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and so Marcus makes this delicious Marcus, and it's
Speaker 4: so yummy and it's just chicken and bention whatever. But
Speaker 4: the crust is whetavix mushed up with a bit of
Speaker 4: salt and cheddar cheese and it melts and it's heaven.
Speaker 1: And whenever I'm feeling like.
Speaker 2: A little bit depleted or done in, he'll make that
Speaker 2: and will He'll make a big old thing of it,
Speaker 2: and we'll start with like fairly conservative portions.
Speaker 1: And I think that's perfect. Okay, Well, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: It's a great, great time I'm with you. And now
Speaker 1: you're going to go have scalps or whatever there is
Speaker 1: in the River cop I do more together. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, thank you for listening to Ruthie's Table four
Speaker 1: in partnership with Montclair. Ruthie's Table four is produced by
Speaker 1: Atamei Studios for iHeartRadio. It's hosted by Ruthie Rodgers and
Speaker 1: it's produced by William Lensky. This episode was edited by
Speaker 1: Julia Johnson and mixed by Nigel Appleton. Our executive producers
Speaker 1: are Faye Stewart and Zad Rogers. Our production manager is
Speaker 1: Caitlin Paramore, and our production coordinator is Bellas. This episode
Speaker 1: had additional contributions by Sean Wynn Owen. Thank you to
Speaker 1: everyone at The River Cafe for your help in making
Speaker 1: this episode