Speaker 1: You're listening to Ruthie's Table four in partnership with Montclair.
Speaker 1: Sam Taylor Johnson is a close friend and director of
Speaker 1: Back to Black, The Story of Amy Winehouse. Checking in
Speaker 1: with her during filming, she always reassured me that it
Speaker 1: was intense, it was challenging, it was exhilarating, but really, Ruthie,
Speaker 1: the greatest thing about the whole process was working with
Speaker 1: the brilliant and fearless Marisa Abella. One night a few
Speaker 1: months ago, Sam called me at home to tell me
Speaker 1: Marisa was in the River Cafe and might we send
Speaker 1: her a glass of champagne. When I told this to
Speaker 1: a friend who was visiting me from New York, he said, Ruthie,
Speaker 1: we're not sending her a glass of champagne. We're going
Speaker 1: there right now to give it to her ourselves. She's amazing,
Speaker 1: and she was and she is. Three days ago, Back
Speaker 1: to Black opened in London, and though I was three
Speaker 1: thousand miles away in New York, the word travel that
Speaker 1: it was a great movie. Today we're here to get
Speaker 1: in the River Cafe to talk about performance in the
Speaker 1: kitchen and performance in front of the camera, and afterwards
Speaker 1: we'll have a glass of champagne. So talking about the movie, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it opened up Monday night. Yeah yeah, everybody's going to
Speaker 1: ask you who was there and what did you wear?
Speaker 1: And I'm going to ask you what you ate? What
Speaker 1: did you what did you do for food?
Speaker 2: Let's be honest. I'm wearing like a Fendy dress. It's
Speaker 2: very figure hugging.
Speaker 1: What does the food have to do with the Fendy dress?
Speaker 1: That you were afraid of eating too much?
Speaker 2: And then we kind of split the scene right right right.
Speaker 2: You just want to be you want to feel your best,
Speaker 2: but it's still just sort of about like pacing and whatever.
Speaker 2: And also you get so nervous that it's just the
Speaker 2: adrenaline so intense.
Speaker 1: So what did you do? Did you eat before you?
Speaker 1: Did you have a good meal on Sunday night?
Speaker 2: I had a good glass of red wine and I
Speaker 2: did have a good meal. I had a chicken seat.
Speaker 2: Did the premiere? That was very exciting?
Speaker 1: Yeah, most exciting moment.
Speaker 2: It was very important for me with my first ever premiere.
Speaker 2: So I was you know, I wanted my family to
Speaker 2: be there and my friends and then you get five
Speaker 2: people that get to sit next to you, So okay,
Speaker 2: who's that going to be my mom, my, dad, whatever.
Speaker 2: But I decided that it should be my best girlfriends
Speaker 2: because they're the ones that are going to be just
Speaker 2: so excited. And I think the most purely happy moment
Speaker 2: was when I sat down next to them and the
Speaker 2: first ten minutes or whatever, all of them just turning
Speaker 2: arounding at one specific moment wet.
Speaker 1: When you see the effect, that's yeah, I couldn't possibly
Speaker 1: compare it to what we do, but having to see
Speaker 1: the response. I was talking to Sarah Jessica Parker and
Speaker 1: we're talking the other day about audiences, and I was saying,
Speaker 1: can you know I can tell the night when we
Speaker 1: might be have the same team, the sort of the
Speaker 1: same food, the place is full, but you can have
Speaker 1: at the end of it thinking it didn't work or yes.
Speaker 1: And I said, does that happen in the theory? She
Speaker 1: said sometimes, Ruthie. I just wonder if all those people
Speaker 1: called each other first before they came and so let's hold,
Speaker 1: let's have let's not laugh at any of the jokes,
Speaker 1: you know, or they you know, they call each other,
Speaker 1: they say, Okay, we're going to be really responsive. It's
Speaker 1: almost the mood. And so did you feel that from
Speaker 1: the audience. You know.
Speaker 2: It's also difficult to tell, especially with a film when
Speaker 2: it's not when you're not rehearsing the scenes or the type.
Speaker 2: You film every scene and individually for three months, it's
Speaker 2: difficult to remember exactly what's going on. And then you
Speaker 2: watch it on screen and you know, within the first
Speaker 2: two minutes you get a big laugh or something, and
Speaker 2: you think so much about what the reaction to it's
Speaker 2: going to be, you don't even think, you know, people
Speaker 2: find it funny. So then when people are laughing, you're like,
Speaker 2: oh my god, you know this is this is crazy
Speaker 2: and we've got a standing ovation at the end, which
Speaker 2: is and I didn't I think I blacked out. I
Speaker 2: didn't notice. I like walked straight up to Sam and
Speaker 2: I was like, I can't believe, how do you feel?
Speaker 2: And she was like, Marisa, turn around, like everyone is
Speaker 2: on their feet, and I was like, what you know?
Speaker 2: And it's just it's just it's wild.
Speaker 1: When you're working, when you are filming. When if you
Speaker 1: knew that you had a long day of performing different scenes,
Speaker 1: different songs, what would you eat.
Speaker 2: Well, this is different to most of the other work
Speaker 2: I've done because I had specific needs to meet as Amy.
Speaker 2: You know, I went through a physical transformation, So what
Speaker 2: was that? I lost a lot of weight to play
Speaker 2: her at certain points in her life.
Speaker 1: How much do you remember?
Speaker 2: Probably that's yeah, well let's stop.
Speaker 1: There and tell me how.
Speaker 2: You did that. Well, essentially a plant based gluten free day,
Speaker 2: free cop free. I mean it was sort of legumes
Speaker 2: and plants in the evenings.
Speaker 1: In the evening. Yeah, And did you find that difficult?
Speaker 2: I mean, very as you can tell food is you know.
Speaker 2: But the truth is is that like, what it does
Speaker 2: do is that it makes those four months of your
Speaker 2: life completely about the work. And I'm not a method
Speaker 2: actress in that I go home and I think, am
Speaker 2: I Marisa? Or am I am? Like? I know, I
Speaker 2: know what's going on, and that's not it's not important
Speaker 2: for me to do that. But what it does mean
Speaker 2: is that you can't get away from this work and
Speaker 2: it is the most important thing, as it should be
Speaker 2: for that time. When it's a physical feeling like that,
Speaker 2: you can't you know, you can't change it, like hunger.
Speaker 2: For me, the most important thing though I wasn't going
Speaker 2: to do the classic. You know, you hear about these
Speaker 2: actors that are like I was on one whatever and
Speaker 2: a cigarette a date. But it wasn't that I ate
Speaker 2: because for me, the most important thing always was the
Speaker 2: rest of the work, like can I embody her? Can
Speaker 2: I inhabit her? Can I sing? Can I move?
Speaker 1: Can I? You know?
Speaker 2: And I wasn't going to be able to do that
Speaker 2: if I absolutely no energy. So it was a sort
Speaker 2: of like a science of finding the maximum amount of
Speaker 2: energy from the minimum amount of sustenance.
Speaker 1: Essentially, as you say you were doing it for work.
Speaker 1: It was for a job. It wasn't because you wanted
Speaker 1: to fit into to get a boyfriend or yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean there's so many issues.
Speaker 2: And also, you know, Amy had beliemia. I was playing
Speaker 2: someone with an eating disorder, so it's also about understanding
Speaker 2: the psychology of eating disorders, and also one eating disorder
Speaker 2: over another. It's interesting to me as an actor. You know,
Speaker 2: if someone has anorexx, yeah, it's something very different if
Speaker 2: someone has beliema. Someone's relationship to food is interesting. I think,
Speaker 2: you know, needing to eat and purge versus not eat
Speaker 2: anything at all says something different about a person. I
Speaker 2: think from what age fourteen forever or pretty much. I
Speaker 2: think it's difficult to say exactly, you know, especially when
Speaker 2: she was in the throes of her addiction, what her
Speaker 2: appetite was like at that point, probably incredibly low, you know,
Speaker 2: versus only healthier with your relationship to drugs and alcohol.
Speaker 2: Your relationship to food might be different because your body changes,
Speaker 2: you know, if you're eating more because you're not using.
Speaker 2: But what we do know is that she had a
Speaker 2: difficult relationship with food and with her body image from
Speaker 2: the age of fourteen. As an actor, having someone tell
Speaker 2: you that you need to look a certain way for
Speaker 2: a role when that role is fictional, it's very difficult,
Speaker 2: and I think I would struggle with that. But when
Speaker 2: it's not fictional and she's existed, and you know her
Speaker 2: relationship to food and drugs and alcohol has affected the
Speaker 2: way that she physically manifests to all of us, then
Speaker 2: I think it's you know, my job as an actor
Speaker 2: to do that thing.
Speaker 1: Do you think the food was overpowering in terms of
Speaker 1: her whole character, that it was defining?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think that. You know, part of the
Speaker 2: reason that her addiction hit her physically as hard as
Speaker 2: it did was because she didn't have the sort of
Speaker 2: physical capability to keep up with as much as she
Speaker 2: was consuming. But I also think that she was completely
Speaker 2: hounded by the paparazzi. One of the things that drew
Speaker 2: me to Amy as a woman was that she had
Speaker 2: this insatiable appetite for life and for music, you know,
Speaker 2: and that you can see that in her body when
Speaker 2: she's younger. She's not afraid to be hungry for life
Speaker 2: and for experiences and for food. And as the world
Speaker 2: got more hungry for her, it's almost like they stole
Speaker 2: that appetite from her. It's almost like, you know, aerial
Speaker 2: and ursula, like they took her voice away from her,
Speaker 2: and they took her appetite. And it's when someone is
Speaker 2: feeding on you, is there that much left? I know
Speaker 2: it's kind of sounding a bit metaphorical, that I do
Speaker 2: think that. I think that food, if you're told, is
Speaker 2: a woman in your life, like, don't take up space.
Speaker 2: You have to stop enjoying one of the simple pleasures,
Speaker 2: you know, it's a sensual pleasure, and I don't think
Speaker 2: she has afforded many of those.
Speaker 1: Tell me about the joy that you heard during filming,
Speaker 1: and about that you told us about Christmas.
Speaker 2: My birthday is in December, and obviously Christmas is also
Speaker 2: in December, and my trainers said, listen, you have to
Speaker 2: give yourself one thing to work towards, so like you know,
Speaker 2: you're going to be able to give yourself whatever you
Speaker 2: want on that day. And it can either be your
Speaker 2: birthday or Christmas, because December kind of works for us.
Speaker 2: And I was hosting Christmas that year my flat, so
Speaker 2: it became all I could think about if I was hungry.
Speaker 2: I remember one time I got a massage. I booked
Speaker 2: in a massage and it was an hour and a
Speaker 2: half and instead of relaxing during this massage, all I
Speaker 2: was thinking was, well, I'll sub you know, little bagels
Speaker 2: with crumbrushion, and I'll do caveat and I'll do this.
Speaker 2: And it was like, you know, it was a Christmas
Speaker 2: for four people, and I had a ham, a lamb,
Speaker 2: a chicken because I was just so fixated on this food.
Speaker 1: Did you know the River Cafe has a shop. It's
Speaker 1: full of our favorite foods and designs. We have cookbooks,
Speaker 1: lin a Napkins kitchen, were 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 Therivercafe dot co dot uk. Tell me
Speaker 1: what it was like cooking with Sean here in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: Do it you did zucchini trifilati?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the thing about cooking is that you know,
Speaker 2: we all. It's the same with films, right, everyone watches
Speaker 2: movies all the time and knows what they love. Who
Speaker 2: doesn't necessarily know how they'd make it? And it's like
Speaker 2: I know what I would love to eat and how
Speaker 2: I enjoy food. But watching someone really know what it
Speaker 2: is that they're doing make something that you know is
Speaker 2: about to be delicious, It's probably the same feeling that
Speaker 2: people get when they come on certain watch movies being made.
Speaker 3: Hi, I'm Sean Owen. I'm here with Marisa Abella and
Speaker 3: we're going to make zucchini trifilati. In case you ever
Speaker 3: have guests with you decided you're going to make zucchini trifolati.
Speaker 3: You can cut it on the chopping board or you
Speaker 3: can just cut it like a housewife.
Speaker 2: That's my preferred message.
Speaker 1: I love that.
Speaker 3: So I've just cut it in my hand, like turning
Speaker 3: the zucchini as I.
Speaker 1: Cnu't so cool, just like just put yourself.
Speaker 3: In the mindset of the Italian housewife. Yeah, just turn
Speaker 3: and cut and turn and cut.
Speaker 2: I cut apples like this sometime, got it.
Speaker 3: And so as many as zucchini as you want.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure how many of.
Speaker 3: The recipe it's going to be four. Probably four. You'll
Speaker 3: just have a bit of garlic. We've got spring garlic.
Speaker 3: Now that's just it also really amazing because the skin
Speaker 3: is so soft that you can need the whole skin
Speaker 3: like you have to cut, you don't really have to
Speaker 3: trim it off, and that will just get in as well.
Speaker 3: And then we're just gonna fry the zucchini with like
Speaker 3: olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper and a low heat
Speaker 3: for about maybe an hour or so. You get perfect
Speaker 3: zucchini triflaty like super slow because it's supers slow. And
Speaker 3: then we finish it with zucchini flowers. At the end.
Speaker 3: It looks really fresh. It's a really nice thing if
Speaker 3: you have like fresh zucchini and you're.
Speaker 1: Growing in your garden, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: I mean I have a garden, but the flowers are
Speaker 3: amazing in the summer, you know, and you can fry them.
Speaker 3: But also the beautiful added to this, and this is
Speaker 3: such a nice thing to have like on its own,
Speaker 3: with fish or meat.
Speaker 1: Chickens in a nice bit olive oil.
Speaker 2: Then if you can see that there.
Speaker 3: Looks a bit like sludge.
Speaker 2: No, it looks so delicious. Don't not put that in.
Speaker 1: But is it?
Speaker 3: Is it all in the intensity of the When you
Speaker 3: slow cook something, it goes.
Speaker 2: Really an olive oil. Right, okay, exactly at the end?
Speaker 2: Right Zuccini.
Speaker 3: I hope it's cooked long enough.
Speaker 1: For rufe.
Speaker 2: Zucchini trafilati Eighteen small zucchini, trimmed and cut, three tablespoons
Speaker 2: of olive oil, two garlic cloves, peeled and sliced, a
Speaker 2: handful of mint or basil, roughly chopped, sea salt, and
Speaker 2: freshly ground black pepper. Heat the oil in a large
Speaker 2: frying pan. Add the garlic and gently brown. Then add
Speaker 2: the zucchini and cook slowly for fifteen to twenty minutes,
Speaker 2: when brown on all sides. At one hundred and twenty
Speaker 2: five milli liters of boiling water and stir, scraping and
Speaker 2: combining the juices until the water has been absorbed and
Speaker 2: the zucchini is soft. Add the mint or basil, seasoned
Speaker 2: with salt and pepper and serve.
Speaker 1: You chose the recipe for zucchini trifilati, I did? And
Speaker 1: why why did it have all the recipes? Because it's
Speaker 1: one of my favorites. It's one of the first vegetables
Speaker 1: I ever learned to cook. In that process.
Speaker 2: I love eating zucchini out courgette, same thing, same thing,
Speaker 2: French or Italian. I love eating it out. But whenever
Speaker 2: I cook it, I don't get it quite right. I fore, like,
Speaker 2: I don't know whether I don't season it completely right,
Speaker 2: or it can go kind of like too soft, too easily,
Speaker 2: or whatever it is. But so, but whenever I eat
Speaker 2: it out, it's like, oh my god, what is this delicious?
Speaker 2: Especially impasta? And then so I think when I saw
Speaker 2: it today, I was like, well, this is a perfect
Speaker 2: way to just maybe it's quite selfish. And also the timing,
Speaker 2: she said an hour. I'm bad at putting things on
Speaker 2: high for a short period of time. I guess I'm
Speaker 2: quite impatient book, Yeah, exactly, I come on, let's go.
Speaker 2: Let's Also I get very hungry very quickly, especially when
Speaker 2: I'm at home. I'm just sirring, oh, I'll make dinner tonight,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: fifteen minutes, I'm like, I'm starving. I don't know about you.
Speaker 2: I'm going to die by.
Speaker 1: Oil water right faster. Yeah, I think that the French
Speaker 1: are like very Healdente, you know, they're like things quite crispy.
Speaker 1: And the Italians really like to slow cook their vegetables.
Speaker 1: I get more flavor out of it. Maybe it's the
Speaker 1: olive oil that is then absorbed into it over a
Speaker 1: longer period of time, the process of sort of slidy
Speaker 1: going brown and then soft and then brown again. The
Speaker 1: Italians cook vegetables for your British I know, so I
Speaker 1: have to be careful not malt okay. So then I
Speaker 1: would say that why is it that when the Italians
Speaker 1: cook vegetables for a long time they get better, and
Speaker 1: when English people vegetables for a long time, they kind
Speaker 1: of get worse. Friend of mine said, I remember saying
Speaker 1: years ago that nobody really had time to cook anymore,
Speaker 1: and that's you know, it's a shame. And he said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but except for the English. Maybe cabbage, but they'll say, oh,
Speaker 1: we only have forty five minutes the cabbage. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: that would speed up. But I think zucchini. Does we
Speaker 1: do some that. Actually, I don't think we do any
Speaker 1: zucchini that is, Chris. But because even if we boil it,
Speaker 1: we boil it for longer whole and then slice it
Speaker 1: up and put it with olive oil and mint.
Speaker 2: But well that's something that I've learned today. Yeah, see,
Speaker 2: that's good.
Speaker 1: So what was it like growing up in your home
Speaker 1: in terms of food, because you do seem to say
Speaker 1: you love to eat. Tell me about the early days
Speaker 1: of your childhood and food. What are your memories.
Speaker 2: I grew up at home with my mom and my
Speaker 2: brother and me. It's just the three of us, and
Speaker 2: my mom is a great cook. There was always a
Speaker 2: lot of food, you know, like that was the thing.
Speaker 2: Quantity was keen in my house, like loads of food.
Speaker 2: There was never a question of anyone going hungry. And
Speaker 2: it was also such a big way of showing love.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, my mom, if I was feeling sad,
Speaker 2: it was food. If I was feeling happy, it was food.
Speaker 1: What was her background? Did she grow up in a
Speaker 1: house like that? Well? I don't know.
Speaker 2: Actually, I think my mom grew up quite scared of food.
Speaker 2: My mom is Jewish. I think food in the Jewish
Speaker 2: culture is so important, you know. So I think she
Speaker 2: and my mom didn't have a huge appetite growing up,
Speaker 2: but it was very like finished, what's on your plate?
Speaker 1: Do you know? Have your grandmother where she came was
Speaker 1: she born in Britain?
Speaker 2: Well, so there are two sides, both sort of during
Speaker 2: a Second World War. There were my mother's father's family
Speaker 2: emigrated from Poland and my mother's family were from Austria,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think there's also something perhaps about an
Speaker 1: immigrant family in a possibly threatening environment. My family came
Speaker 1: from Russia and from Hungary again emigrated and there definitely
Speaker 1: was a feeling that in an alien environment where you
Speaker 1: were concerned about the protection of your children, food was
Speaker 1: a kind of way of almost creating a barrier of
Speaker 1: safety for your kids. And you know, the thing of
Speaker 1: coming home. I always tell a story that apparently my
Speaker 1: grandmother came to visit her first grandson, my brother and
Speaker 1: first grandson, and she came. She used to travel with
Speaker 1: her rolling pit, you know, and so she arrived in
Speaker 1: the house of the country and my mother said, do
Speaker 1: you want to see that baby? And she said, let's
Speaker 1: eat first.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So I think that culture but it may be. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm Jewish, and so I think that probably is a
Speaker 1: Jewish characteristic. But probably if you had an African family
Speaker 1: in you know, a white society that felt threatened, or
Speaker 1: you know, a Catholic family in Belfast, that food would
Speaker 1: maybe become even more totally.
Speaker 2: And like my mom grew up in Northwest London, so
Speaker 2: I grew up in Brighton, So there's not really a
Speaker 2: massive Jewish community at all where I grew up, but
Speaker 2: we were probably the only household there was. You know,
Speaker 2: there were lots of supermarkets in Brighton where you could
Speaker 2: get whatever it was you wanted to eat, but my
Speaker 2: mom would have to go to the waitrose if she
Speaker 2: wanted anything that was kosher. Yeah, you're right, no, no,
Speaker 2: but she liked My mum will only eat Kosha smake salmon.
Speaker 2: She doesn't like other smoke salmon because it's too oily.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: She likes sort of kosher sausages and could filter fish
Speaker 2: and you know, she likes that food. So if she
Speaker 2: she wouldn't eat necessari and keep kosher, but she had
Speaker 2: to go to that waitrose to get that food. So
Speaker 2: mine was the only house in Rotting Dean. You know, right,
Speaker 2: and I had chopped liver in the fridge, but it
Speaker 2: was I mean, but my brother and I were quite
Speaker 2: kind of embarrassed at that food. I think it's weird.
Speaker 1: It's kind of weird to kind of adapt. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think you want to. Whereas your mother might have
Speaker 1: been proud to do that, the children are much more
Speaker 1: protected of their identity and wanting to, you know, become
Speaker 1: like the people next door, school friends, not be different.
Speaker 2: And I think that because she was a single mother too,
Speaker 2: it was very much like she I think, you know,
Speaker 2: when you have two kids under the age of four, necessarily,
Speaker 2: you know, we're not eating filter fish. So she would
Speaker 2: eat alone a lot, not alone with us, but eat
Speaker 2: her own meal. And I we did that a lot
Speaker 2: actually growing up. You know, my brother loved oldfish and
Speaker 2: I loved red meat, and my mom loved whatever, you know,
Speaker 2: and we would eat different at the same time totally,
Speaker 2: and I was fine. I was actually telling a friend
Speaker 2: just now that you know I eat. Before I met
Speaker 2: my boyfriend that I'm with now, I didn't like to
Speaker 2: share food. And I think that that's kind of why,
Speaker 2: because we'd go out for dinner and it would be like,
Speaker 2: I'll have my thing, you have yours. It was weird
Speaker 2: for me. Also, small plates restaurants is such a thing now,
Speaker 2: you know, thing in London. For me growing up, if
Speaker 2: we went out for dinner, I would get a bowl
Speaker 2: of pasta, you know, carbonara. Let's say, my brother would
Speaker 2: get the prawns with garlic and chili, and my mom
Speaker 2: would get the chicken and we wouldn't share. You know.
Speaker 2: It was that and my mom. But my mom was
Speaker 2: very good at spending that time making what it was
Speaker 2: that we wanted. It's a lot of work, but what
Speaker 2: it meant was that I'm up. Until a couple of
Speaker 2: years ago, really I was not good at sharing food
Speaker 2: were now the only thing that I refuse to share
Speaker 2: is soup because I think that's gross.
Speaker 1: Yeah gross, right, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 2: And people also say you shouldn't share omelets, Okay, I
Speaker 2: like her. I don't mind sharing enough.
Speaker 1: Well, it's all about the double dipping, right right, right,
Speaker 1: But the COVID also changed a lot of job don't
Speaker 1: you sure sort of fear around around that? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: did you have Friday night suppers? Well, I guess you didn't.
Speaker 2: At my at my mother's family's house, you know, we
Speaker 2: would we would go, we would travel up to uh
Speaker 2: Highgate by that point where my grandfather was living, and
Speaker 2: we do pass over. Definitely.
Speaker 1: Does your father cook.
Speaker 2: My dad does cook, but he cooked my dad's Maltese.
Speaker 1: What is Maltese food.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a mix, just like the language
Speaker 2: of arab and Italian because it's in between North Africa,
Speaker 2: Libya and.
Speaker 1: Sicily, so great, great mix.
Speaker 2: It's incredible. But the food is, you know, it's also
Speaker 2: in terms of produce, it's not the best place. So
Speaker 2: like the food is yummy, but it's lots of rabbit.
Speaker 1: You know. The Friday night supper and Jewish households is like,
Speaker 1: I guess it's a bit like the Sunday lunch with religion,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, read did you do the readings? And
Speaker 1: the I did?
Speaker 2: I had to sing, the managed to know and all
Speaker 2: of that kind of stuff. I mean, I remember, you know,
Speaker 2: the actual food on Passover being just sort of like
Speaker 2: some horrible cool events. But then it's like, you know,
Speaker 2: roast chicken or whatever it was. Yeah, lots of fish too,
Speaker 2: And I only started liking fish a couple of years ago.
Speaker 1: So you grew up really loving food, loving loving to eat, yeah.
Speaker 2: Very much so. And you know, if I was if
Speaker 2: I woke up one morning was like, I don't want
Speaker 2: to go to school today, A bribe me by taking
Speaker 2: me to the bakery before school so I could get
Speaker 2: across like it was, you know, and I'd have sometimes
Speaker 2: she'd pick me up every Thursday night with a chicken
Speaker 2: katsukari before I went to netball, because I don't know
Speaker 2: how I did that, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you liked listening to Ruthie's Table four, would
Speaker 1: you please make sure to rate and review the podcast
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Thank you. When you grew up in
Speaker 1: this household of your you know, everybody having a meal,
Speaker 1: whether it was all three separate foods, and then you
Speaker 1: left home to go to did you go to Rada? Right?
Speaker 1: And was that an awakening? Was it?
Speaker 2: It?
Speaker 1: Was it different? It was apartment.
Speaker 2: I lived in an apartment in Wilston Green with three
Speaker 2: people that were in my year but I'd never met
Speaker 2: before that time. I mean, I ate a lot of
Speaker 2: like things on toast, to be honest, mushrooms on toast.
Speaker 2: I had a lot.
Speaker 1: That's good.
Speaker 2: I'd put like pestle into my mushrooms and I'd have
Speaker 2: that on tits almost every night. There was a fish
Speaker 2: and chip shop. I didn't like fish then, so I'd
Speaker 2: get like a savaloy and chips.
Speaker 1: Mate, you start liking fish, do you.
Speaker 2: Think When I had a year off, I went to Fiji,
Speaker 2: there was like a sustainability thing that we were living
Speaker 2: on this tiny island. And if you.
Speaker 1: Didn't eat fish, that's fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very far. If you didn't eat fish, you had
Speaker 2: to eat pumpkin. I was like, great, I'll eat pumpkin.
Speaker 2: But after a month of eating pumpkin, You're like, I'm
Speaker 2: going to die if I don't eat something other than pumpkin.
Speaker 2: So I started to try fish, and I got better
Speaker 2: and better. Back eighteen and.
Speaker 1: Apart from Malta, did your parents take you to Italy
Speaker 1: or to France? Did your rooposed to other cultures of foosh?
Speaker 2: You know, my mom was very busy trying to keep
Speaker 2: everything afloat if I went on holiday. I went away
Speaker 2: more with my dad, but he took us to some
Speaker 2: amazing places. I went to Egypt when I was eleven,
Speaker 2: and I remember my dad having pigeon a whole one yeah,
Speaker 2: a whole pigeon and getting food poisoning, and then we
Speaker 2: went to the pyramids and my dad passed out in
Speaker 2: a pyramid, which was quite scary. Yeah, so I remember,
Speaker 2: you know, I remember going away a lot. You know,
Speaker 2: I went away with my dad, but it was mostly Malta.
Speaker 2: I didn't like travel a lot, you know, as a kid.
Speaker 2: To be honest, I only went to America for the
Speaker 2: first time a couple of years ago, and I'm about
Speaker 2: to go to LA for my first time.
Speaker 1: So he's La the premiere in La.
Speaker 2: There's there's a screening in La, and it will be.
Speaker 1: My first time wearing the same friendly dress or do
Speaker 1: you get to know a different thing? I think you
Speaker 1: have to give it back and that's fine.
Speaker 2: I think it's custom. So I think that's my I mean,
Speaker 2: I had my name in the label, so I keep up.
Speaker 2: So but yeah, and again it's like, that's what's fun
Speaker 2: to me is where am I going to eat in La?
Speaker 2: Where am I going to eat in New York? When
Speaker 2: I'm there in Paris? At all of those things.
Speaker 1: I think that's always like that question when you know,
Speaker 1: asking people who do travel for either they're you know,
Speaker 1: acting or for other reasons that they have to travel.
Speaker 1: They're the people who really research where they're going, to
Speaker 1: find out where they're going to eat, and maybe go
Speaker 1: to the markets to see, yeah, what's in what's in season,
Speaker 1: and what's in the in the market. Do you go
Speaker 1: to sleep at night thinking what you're going to eat
Speaker 1: the next day?
Speaker 2: I definitely did while I was on this day for
Speaker 2: what I love to eat, you know, but I've become
Speaker 2: better at understanding what it is that my body needs
Speaker 2: at different times. I'm not as obsessed with food as
Speaker 2: I have been at certain points in my life.
Speaker 1: How do you feel having finished playing Amy?
Speaker 2: It's been a while since we wrapped, It's been about
Speaker 2: a year. But no, it was difficult, you know. It
Speaker 2: was I was so invested emotionally and physically and psychologically
Speaker 2: in that world, so it was kind of insane to
Speaker 2: step out of it. It didn't really feel real. Every time
Speaker 2: I see Amy anywhere and hear her anywhere, it's definitely
Speaker 2: means something different to me now than it did before.
Speaker 2: I'm incredibly proud of what it is that we've made.
Speaker 2: And you know, when you get to finally enjoy the
Speaker 2: work and sit in the cinemar and watch it with
Speaker 2: those people and had the kind of reaction that we
Speaker 2: had on Monday night. It feels like, oh amazing.
Speaker 1: You know, before we started, we were talking about comfort
Speaker 1: and I was saying that we always ask everybody because
Speaker 1: the answers are so different. But if you were to
Speaker 1: think about a food that you would go to for
Speaker 1: comfort when you were either worried or concerned or sad
Speaker 1: or a loss or whatever it was that you just
Speaker 1: wanted something that would make you feel better through eating,
Speaker 1: is there a comfort food that you would go to?
Speaker 2: Yes. I mean my mom used to make me a
Speaker 2: risotto when I was younger, and it was very much
Speaker 2: the like Marisa is having a bit of a sad
Speaker 2: day and this is what she needs to eat. And
Speaker 2: it was a resulto. Really that was probably for about
Speaker 2: four people that I ate all by myself. And how
Speaker 2: do you know, I don't know how sort of like
Speaker 2: authentic it was. I think sometimes she would use like
Speaker 2: resorto rise and sometimes it would be like basmati rices.
Speaker 2: That's what she had in the fridge in the carbeard
Speaker 2: but you know it was a bacon and pea resotte
Speaker 2: and it was delicious. And now if I'm feeling sad still,
Speaker 2: I would call my mum and ask her to make
Speaker 2: me that resotte.
Speaker 1: Okay, well then she would. I'm sure you'd have to.
Speaker 1: Would you have a bake yourself?
Speaker 2: I don't think it would be the same.
Speaker 1: We can make that. The piece are in season right now,
Speaker 1: so the next time, if you come and call me
Speaker 1: and we'll make that for you.
Speaker 2: Okay, God, amazing? Why not? Thank you, thank you so much,
Speaker 2: thank you, thank you.
Speaker 1: I have that. Yeah, thank you for listening to Ruthie's
Speaker 1: table for in partnership with Montclair