Episode 1106 - Thandie Newton
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fuck nicks what the fuckadelics what the fuckettes how's it going
Marc:Are you all right?
Marc:How's it being bunkered, self-isolated, sequestered by self, quarantined, nothing to do, locked down?
Marc:How's it going?
Marc:Are you all right?
Marc:I just, man, I don't know.
Marc:It got pretty scary pretty quick out here in California.
Marc:I don't know where you are.
Marc:Of course, we're a little late to the game in this country, but, you know, leave it to Americans.
Marc:It takes a while for them to kind of negotiate.
Marc:The negotiation between lizard brain and the ego can be kind of rough going.
Marc:You know, you get the information and lizard brain wants to react properly and take the constructive measures to protect oneself.
Marc:But then depending where your ego lies, maybe you still want to go to that concert or you still want to go to that restaurant.
Marc:You still want to go to that bar or you still want to believe that it's not real or that it couldn't happen to you.
Marc:Ego, that kind that I'll tell you, man, that that conflict between ego and lizard brain is going to be the end of us.
Marc:And I'm being fairly diplomatic about it.
Marc:I mean, I'm the same way.
Marc:I'm the same way.
Marc:I mean, come on.
Marc:Our guest today is Tandy Newton from Westworld and she was in the movie Crash.
Marc:She's a very lovely person.
Marc:The new season of Westworld is on HBO Sunday nights and on HBO streaming platforms, but a lovely person.
Marc:And I was thrilled to talk to her, but I do want to let you guys know, we did the interview shortly before the, it was sort of at the beginning of it, of the lockdown out here.
Marc:I do want to tell you, as always, despite whatever we go through, given this is one of the few places where people can still connect and listen and take their minds off it, or at least listen to other human beings being human.
Marc:We're going to keep at it.
Marc:We're not going to let you down.
Marc:We will be here for you, going through it with you as this unfolds.
Marc:But we're going to be here the same as always, twice a week to give you what you need.
Marc:It's definitely scary.
Marc:And I think it's weird for me because I'm an anxious person that's full of dread anyways.
Marc:But but generally, my dread does not the world's going to end dread or that I'm going to get sick dread.
Marc:Really, it's really day to day dread.
Marc:But I've I've run the gamut.
Marc:of complete existential paralysis and anxiety.
Marc:I used to be just paralyzed by hypochondria.
Marc:I used to be completely immersed in the type of dread of I was going to die.
Marc:We were all going to die, but that's lessened.
Marc:But my grooves are grooved.
Marc:My neuro channels, my neural canals,
Marc:My neural pathways are cut with the sharp edge of anxiety all the way back from my front lobes to the back, all the way back, all the way from the ego to the lizard brain.
Marc:I've got well-articulated neural pathways that I can climb into anytime I want.
Marc:Well-traveled.
Marc:So with all this going down, there's something about the chaos and the panic and the impending doom of it all that is sort of I feel OK.
Marc:I feel like, all right, so now we all kind of understand, you know, what carved me out of the fucking clay to be who I am.
Marc:And then we're all on the same page.
Marc:Obviously, that's.
Marc:That's not true.
Marc:Some people are worse off.
Marc:But in terms of panic, there's something about things being a little chaotic and out of control and scary is when I get calm and I get clarity and I get relaxed and I get grounded.
Marc:The belligerence of the people that insist on living their lives is inability to think altruistically.
Marc:It's a fairly selfish, childish mode of thinking that the right engages in most of the time.
Marc:But some of us are guilty of it as well.
Marc:The sort of like, yeah, it's not that bad.
Marc:You don't die, but old people die.
Marc:It's the spread, man.
Marc:It's the spread.
Marc:And quite honestly, they don't know.
Marc:They don't know how it's going to affect people.
Marc:They don't know how it's going to mutate.
Marc:It's killing some younger folks in some places.
Marc:I don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:The hope is... The hope is...
Marc:That it don't get that bad and that somehow the precautions we're taking on a state by state level by responsible state representatives as opposed to leadership at the top.
Marc:It may work.
Marc:It may hold it back.
Marc:And if it does, then the belligerent will, you know, cry foul and and say, I told you and you guys overreacted.
Marc:It was all an assault on our freedom.
Marc:So that's in the best case scenario.
Marc:If thousands and thousands and thousands don't get sick and thousands and thousands and thousands and don't die, those of us who were careful and reacted properly will be called the enemy for overreacting.
Marc:But I guess that's a small price to pay if our fucking economic system and medical system and community systems hold up.
Marc:Right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:What a time to be alive.
Marc:You know, I was too slow on the toilet paper, but thankfully I had a dozen or so rolls.
Marc:And it's only me.
Marc:And now, you know, Lynn's here, too, because her production got shut down in Boston.
Marc:So she flew back.
Marc:Glow is put on hold.
Marc:Everything's on hold.
Marc:The comedy store is closed.
Marc:This is where we're at.
Marc:We don't know how long it's going to go on for.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:And, you know, if you're a compulsive eater, the risk is you're going to go through your two weeks of food in a couple of days.
Marc:We'll see what happens this week.
Marc:You know, I'll check in with the groceries.
Marc:That's a weird thing.
Marc:I compulsively go to grocery stores for one or two things when I need them because they're close.
Marc:Not anymore.
Marc:Not only even if they're little like I need some dry mustard and some peppercorns to pickle some beets.
Marc:But I don't know what it's going to.
Marc:I don't know what's going to happen this week.
Marc:I don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:I just hope people are doing these sort of distancing trip just for everybody's sake.
Marc:We don't know what's going to happen.
Marc:Might as well take the precautions that are recommended by the people that know as opposed to calling them hacks or frauds or cucks.
Marc:Let's listen to the scientists on this one.
Marc:We've never been through a pandemic.
Marc:Why not take the information from the people that understand this stuff because they studied it their whole fucking life as opposed to you probably not listening to this show who thinks they know everything just because.
Guest:Because they don't want to change.
Guest:They don't want to listen.
Guest:They don't want to be inconvenienced.
Guest:I fucking do what I want.
Guest:I'm a child.
Marc:So... A lot of nice responses...
Marc:to the special.
Marc:And I appreciate it.
Marc:A lot of people on Twitter, a lot of emails coming in.
Marc:I appreciate it.
Marc:I couldn't have timed it better.
Marc:I didn't time it like this.
Marc:I had nothing to do with it.
Marc:Tragic serendipity brought my special end times fun to the public on the weekend that seems like the end is upon us.
Marc:And I'm glad it's providing some relief.
Marc:But I had nothing.
Marc:There was no way I could calculate that.
Marc:And I had nothing to do with the creation of the coronavirus.
Marc:Yeah, the entire global tragedy was not some sort of, you know, false flag for me to promote my special.
Marc:Sorry, I wish it was.
Marc:I wish it wasn't real.
Marc:But it is real.
Marc:It is real.
Marc:So let's read an email.
Marc:You got me fired and it changed my life.
Marc:This is something I could not have anticipated.
Marc:Usually I get the life changing emails because of the podcast.
Marc:Hey, Mark, just wanted to share a quick story.
Marc:It was maybe 1995.
Marc:I'd finished college in Indiana with no future, moved to Albuquerque on a whim and got a job at Mailbox, etc.
Marc:"'by the university.
Marc:You came in one morning to send some package.
Marc:I recognized you from Comedy Channel, and to my everlasting embarrassment, was a bit starstruck.
Marc:Evidently, I undercharged you or overcharged you.
Marc:Regardless, it got back to the boss, and she fired me.
Marc:Having nothing else to do then, I answered an ad in the back of a magazine and wound up teaching English in Korea for the next two years, came back to the States, enlisted in the Army for four years, and now I'm a public librarian in Wisconsin.'"
Marc:Just wanted to say thanks for getting me fired to change my life.
Marc:Anyway, appreciate what you do and wanted you to know that your honesty about addiction and related troubles, though masked in comedy, makes a sincere difference in a whole lot of lives.
Marc:Mine included.
Marc:Stay strong and hoo-ha.
Marc:Chris.
Marc:Thanks, buddy.
Marc:Glad to help out.
Marc:Glad to have gotten you fired.
Marc:Glad to help out.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Okay, what else we got?
Marc:Ireland.
Marc:Hello, Mark.
Marc:Just listened to your interview with Don Gavin in which the Irishman needed your convincing to visit Ireland.
Marc:I love that the country left such a large impression on you.
Marc:Who doesn't love soft rain?
Marc:I'm of Irish heritage, originally from North Jersey slash New York.
Marc:Over the years, I connected deeply with many a Russian Jew or Eastern European cohort because of how we overlapped in humor and casual despair.
Marc:Joyce and Tolstoy were doing their thing pretty much at the same time.
Marc:And a quick word about Boston, a.k.a.
Marc:the last bastion of old school American masculinity.
Marc:There exists a double helix of fighty toughness and epigenetic pain, which forms pure cinematic poetry.
Marc:Manchester by the Sea is the most recent example.
Marc:I agree with your observation about Irish men being so much sweeter than Irish American men.
Marc:My theory, Irish American men have had their Donegal beaten out of them, emasculated, particularly in Boston, by the gentry who oppressed them for 800 years back in the motherland.
Marc:I can't imagine it was easy for you either, making the rounds in New England as a young comic.
Marc:My parents are slowly dying on Cape Cod, and every time I visit, I'm struck by the deep suspicion New Englanders have of anyone who doesn't subscribe to that cloistered Catholic pathos.
Marc:Best, Barbara.
Marc:And you, Barbara, are a poet.
Marc:Thank you for that, Barbara.
Marc:I appreciate that.
Marc:This one is... Oh, boy.
Marc:All right.
Marc:Honeymoon Pandemic.
Marc:Dig it.
Marc:Already.
Marc:I'm in.
Marc:I like the title.
Marc:Should be a movie.
Marc:Hi, Mark.
Marc:I hope this email finds you well.
Marc:My wife and I, both Americans, were slash are honeymooning in Spain this past week, if you want to call it that.
Marc:Mostly, we were just walking around increasingly deserted streets in ancient and beautiful locales, looking for restaurants that might welcome us, and clandestinely applying Purell after repeated hand washings.
Marc:What I will say is that we argued a lot and being the more well-traveled in our team, I tried to assure my beloved in chronological order that one, the trip was a good idea.
Marc:Two, we weren't going to have to change it while we were here.
Marc:Three, we can just cut the trip short a bit.
Marc:Four, they're going to let us back in the country.
Marc:Five, home quarantine might be creatively productive for us.
Marc:Huh.
Marc:And I will say we laughed our asses off.
Marc:The special was everything we love about you.
Marc:And it truly helped ease tension we have over our current travel situation and the symbolism of our trip, which we have dubbed Honey Pandemic.
Marc:Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for bringing us together and providing some much needed perspective and levity in a strange time.
Marc:Much love, Keith and Lauren.
Marc:Now, this came in on, I guess, Saturday night.
Marc:I bet you they're stuck there.
Marc:This is going to be a real test.
Marc:Keith, Lauren, God, I hope your marriage survives your honeymoon.
Marc:You know?
Marc:Oh, man.
Marc:So, Tandy Newton...
Marc:is a real fan of this show.
Marc:And it was... I didn't know that thoroughly until she came.
Marc:And we had a lovely conversation.
Marc:And she was great.
Marc:I felt like we could have talked for a long time.
Marc:And she, Tandy Newton, sent me flowers...
Marc:A couple of days after we had the talk to say what a nice time she had and that it was a great experience for her.
Marc:Sent me flowers.
Marc:She sent me a beautiful bouquet of flowers.
Marc:Lovely.
Marc:And this is me talking to Tandy Newton about a lot of stuff.
Marc:She is in the new season of Westworld.
Marc:She's been in there since the beginning.
Marc:And the new season is on HBO Sunday nights and on HBO streaming platforms.
Marc:And we talked about a lot of stuff.
Marc:This is me and Tandy Newton.
Marc:There are shows where people sort of sit down with showrunners and they get like a seasonal arc.
Marc:Like, what am I doing?
Marc:Where am I going to be?
Guest:What's happening?
Marc:Not your experience.
Guest:They like to keep things from us.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because.
Marc:You agree with that logic?
Guest:I trust them.
Guest:I trust them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I like them as people.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I don't trust anybody else.
Marc:You trust the Westworld people.
Guest:I trust those two people are showrunners.
Marc:Do you want to work hands on your head?
Guest:Do people like to?
Guest:You're doing it, so I'm going to do it.
Marc:I do it because I can hear myself, and you can hear yourself.
Guest:I can hear myself slurp.
Marc:Oh, nice.
Marc:That is going to drive some people crazy.
Marc:There are certain people in the world that cannot take that.
Guest:Can't take it.
Marc:I like it, though.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so, but that script, that week-to-week thing, so you get the script for Westworld like a week before?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That's it?
Marc:That's it.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:See, I think that's why I find it or I have found it unsatisfying.
Marc:To act on television.
Marc:Because that means, like, even if you have just a few scenes, you've got a week to kind of put those scenes together, only focus on those scenes, kind of lock into your trip.
Marc:But it's not enough to live in it.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:You're like visiting it.
Guest:Yeah, except you don't know in life what you're going to be doing from one week to the next.
Marc:I don't know what's going to happen in five minutes.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:After I've drunk this coffee.
Marc:You really don't know.
Guest:I have no idea where this is going to go.
Guest:I don't mind.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm trying to think of why they keep things from us sometimes.
Guest:I think they don't want us to share information with each other, whether they don't, maybe they don't want to have to be tied to something.
Guest:I think that might be a thing, like you don't want an actor being disappointed with what's coming up.
Marc:Because it's not fully done yet or they've still got other revisions and shit.
Marc:I think it's mostly because they don't trust anybody not to dump the story out into the world.
Guest:Maybe that's right.
Guest:I don't really know.
Guest:And it's just not that important to me to find out.
Guest:Like if we were in a pattern where, you know, I found out I was going to, you know, kill a child and, you know, maim an old lady.
Guest:It's like, you know what, I just, I don't want, he doesn't give you time to say no.
Marc:To say no.
Marc:I don't want to do that.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Well, there's rights.
Marc:You would think they would ask you.
Marc:But actually, it's only in Westworld that those two things could possibly happen.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:Well, for me.
Guest:As long as they're robots, it doesn't matter, right?
Guest:Oh, God.
Guest:When I find out new stuff, it's always great.
Guest:And I like it.
Marc:I didn't know that I almost tried to have sex with my daughter until the week before.
What?
Marc:That last scene of the second season, I think, of GLOW, where Justine reveals that she's my daughter that I didn't know I had.
Guest:That's pretty fucked up.
Marc:It was pretty intense.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:But, I mean, it didn't go that far.
Marc:No, no.
Marc:But it was kind of jarring.
Marc:But I didn't know that was going to happen until, like, the week before.
Guest:So, and you as a character didn't know either.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I guess that's good.
Marc:I understand that.
Guest:Maybe we're coming around to it.
Marc:Maybe.
Marc:Right now.
Marc:I guess.
Marc:But I guess as an actor who's trying to learn how to act, who doesn't consider himself to be that great at it yet.
Marc:You're very good at it.
Marc:Well, thank you.
Guest:Silly man.
Marc:But to put more work into getting to sort of really feel.
Marc:I think if they told me what's going to happen this whole season, to know where I'm going to go, it would kind of give me some sort of...
Marc:I do know what you mean.
Guest:I do know what you mean.
Guest:For example, Ken Loach, great director Ken Loach, he often doesn't tell the actors what's coming up next.
Guest:The British guy?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And very often they're non-actors.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So they respond as you would completely.
Guest:Sure, right.
Guest:I don't know how I feel about it.
Guest:I think Ken Loach is a genius.
Guest:His films are amazing.
Guest:But if you're an actor doing it for a living, you don't want that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because you want to prepare.
Marc:I guess for me, because I've spent so much of my life not preparing and winging it, like most of what I do stand up and stuff all starts that way.
Marc:And this what we're doing right now.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That, you know, the idea that like, I'd like to try to make some real choices, man.
Marc:I want to spend some time with the choices.
Guest:Mind you, you do have a week and I bet what you do in a week is pretty good.
Marc:But then I talk to people like Sam Rockwell.
Marc:I talk to Rockwell and he's like, when I'm going to do a movie, I read the script, the whole script a hundred times.
Marc:I'm like...
Marc:Holy shit.
Marc:That's fucking crazy.
Marc:That's excessive.
Guest:I guess so.
Guest:That's what he needs to do.
Guest:And he's good.
Guest:He's really good.
Marc:And I don't know what I need to do.
Guest:No.
Guest:What do you need to do?
Guest:You have to figure it out.
Marc:I'm trying to.
Guest:I think you're doing quite a good job.
Marc:Well, thank you.
Guest:I mean, it depends.
Guest:After Glow, do you want to go and do other stuff?
Marc:Well, I've been doing some movies here and there.
Marc:I played Jerry Wexler in the Aretha Franklin movie.
Guest:You did?
Marc:With Jennifer Hudson.
Marc:I hear I did good.
Marc:I never think I did good.
Guest:But you did that beautiful thing.
Marc:Easy.
Guest:You did the Modern Love with Melanie Linsky.
Marc:Melanie Linsky, yeah.
Marc:Easy.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:Great.
Marc:That was heavy.
Marc:I get choked up when you bring it up.
Guest:Oh, she's amazing.
Marc:She's great.
Marc:We had her for one day, man.
Marc:So that cafe scene, that had to fucking go, man.
Guest:Yeah, and it did.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you did great.
Marc:We were in it, wide open.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Oof.
Marc:You live here?
Guest:No, I live in London.
Marc:Oh, you're just here doing press?
Yes.
Guest:Yeah, but I'm in the middle of shooting a movie in Montana right now.
Marc:Montana's pretty.
Marc:Are you enjoying it out there?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What kind of movie are you shooting in Montana?
Guest:Oh, God, it's so fucking good.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Who's directing that?
Guest:It's his first feature.
Guest:He's award-winning short movies, a real student of cinema.
Guest:Oh, yeah, good.
Guest:independent has done it small movie yeah small movie very small yeah um and it was a i just finished westworld and another movie back to back and i really needed to go home and just just do nothing and i read the script and talked to him and
Guest:And I but I said, no, because I just thought this is so good.
Guest:No, I thought this is so good that someone else is going to it's still going to be great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because the material is so good.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I didn't feel like, oh, they need me.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I couldn't stop thinking about it for two weeks.
Guest:I haven't had that experience for years.
Marc:How does Montana factor into it?
Guest:She's it's it's set in Montana.
Guest:She's a black woman in the snow with a dog and a gun.
Marc:Really?
Guest:They call it a neo-western.
Guest:And it's how is Montana?
Guest:I hate the snow.
Guest:I mean, I really do.
Marc:You find no beauty in it.
Guest:It looks beautiful, but underneath there's poo.
Guest:I just see what's – I know what's under there.
Marc:What's frozen under there?
Guest:Well, not even frozen necessarily.
Marc:Just sitting there?
Guest:Just there, right?
Marc:Oh, sure.
Guest:All kinds of filth.
Guest:Filth.
Guest:And it's fucking freezing.
Guest:And I don't like being cold.
Guest:I mean, there is so much going against this thing.
Marc:But it sounds like one of those kind of like, you know, it's a character study.
Marc:You're the movie, correct?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Right.
Guest:And it's dealing with issues around just judging people at face value, hate crimes, racism, subtle, subtle themes, which are so present in our culture right now.
Guest:Oh, fuck.
Guest:What are we going to do?
Guest:And...
Guest:Well, this is why I need to do this film.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:Because I just feel like it really, really, really articulates the dilemma really well and helps you to see just the suicidal tendencies of humanity and how we're not willing to experience each other and face up to ourselves and...
Guest:And just fear of the other.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:But also like that, like, you know, I start to realize recently that there's this weird cocoon of entitlement.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And constantly.
Guest:Which is fear.
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Entitlement is fear.
Marc:But also this idea that, you know, that your perception or what you think somebody is, is what they are.
Marc:And it happens almost innately.
Guest:Instantly, yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:And I think we all do it to a degree.
Marc:I'm not talking about race, but just with anybody.
Marc:I wrote this line.
Marc:I said, most of who other people are is something we make up.
Guest:Oh, yeah, what we project.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Of course it is.
Guest:And it's very useful.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:If you think of yourself in a little tribe and, you know, having to fend for everything, all your resources, protection, everything.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you need to be able to judge at face value.
Guest:You need to make quick decisions.
Marc:Well, are you talking about, are we dealing with wild animals?
Guest:Yeah, wild animals.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:You know, like...
Marc:But people are so much more complex.
Guest:Yes, but we've still got these lizard brains.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And I don't think that we truly understand our kind of archaic impulses.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And they are archaic.
Marc:Sometimes I don't feel like I know anybody, even people that I think I know, even people I should know.
Guest:Isn't that great, though?
Marc:It is great.
Guest:But it means you have to keep exploring.
Guest:You can never assume.
Marc:Right, but you're probably going to find something in there that's disappointing and aggravating.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:That moment where you're like, oh, you're one of those people?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:God damn it.
Guest:Well, that's my theory about falling in love, which is, you know, that love at first sight thing is that you project, like obviously it's got to be a physical, you know, that person, there's a chemistry that goes on.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:And then you project everything that you hope that person could be.
Marc:Everything that didn't come together for you as a child.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everything's there.
Guest:Everything's got to resolve.
Guest:They've got the whole picture.
Guest:That first few moments is wicked.
Guest:And then as time goes on, you're going through the checklist and either it matches up to what you hoped or maybe like 50-50 is pretty cool.
Marc:I guess I hear you have to compromise.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:That's my understanding.
Guest:Yeah, darling, you have to grow.
Marc:That's what I hear.
Marc:You have to grow.
Marc:You have to take the hit.
Guest:You do.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:So much learning.
Marc:So much learning.
Marc:But, I mean, how many times have you had that experience?
Marc:You've been married a while, right?
Guest:21 years.
Marc:That's a long time.
Guest:Yeah, it happened once, and the box, he just ticks them all.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:21 years of ticking boxes?
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Wow, man.
Guest:He even ticks the – okay, in retrospect, even the boxes that –
Guest:I fucking would have kicked him out.
Guest:I realized we're the most important boxes of all.
Marc:Oh, that you dealt with that?
Guest:Yeah, the most important boxes of all.
Guest:The things that I feared most, the things that I desperately didn't want.
Guest:And through no fault of his own necessarily, but in growing past those things.
Marc:So they presented themselves and you were able to work through them.
Marc:Together.
Guest:Yeah, not resist.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:Not resist.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because he's a really, really good person.
Marc:That's good.
Marc:Are you?
Guest:I think I am.
Marc:Good.
Guest:I think so.
Guest:I love a lot.
Marc:Good.
Guest:I do.
Guest:I know I'm kind.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I do.
Marc:I know I'm difficult.
Guest:Self-awareness is so important, isn't it?
Marc:Yeah, but I try to do the right thing.
Marc:I'm cranky about doing the right thing, but I do it.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:No, I mean, like, a lot of times... You're honest?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't think that emotionally I'm as open or as unafraid as I should be in a personal relationship, but I try to compensate by, you know, knowing I need to do good things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:Yeah, that's all.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And then when it happens, when I'm open and stuff, it's like, it's happening.
Marc:Let's enjoy it while it's happening.
Marc:Now it's going away.
Yeah.
Guest:but trust is hard isn't it it's really really hard
Marc:I think I don't even think about it anymore as much as I just go like, is it even necessary?
Marc:I guess it is.
Marc:To trust.
Marc:I don't always know what I want out of a thing.
Guest:Yeah, trust is important.
Guest:You can't know.
Guest:You can't.
Guest:You just got to rely on, like you're in a relationship and something happened, a spark.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you just go, and you go along.
Marc:I had no choice.
Guest:You had no choice.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:It was one of those?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Like, I was like, if I don't do this, I'm going to be mad.
Guest:Oh, really?
Marc:I'm going to regret it.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Marc:I was with somebody else.
Guest:Okay.
Marc:And I was sort of like, oh, my God.
Guest:I mean, at least the decision was kind of made for you.
Marc:It's heavy.
Guest:In some ways, you know?
Marc:Well, you know, also, like, I'm a child.
Marc:You know, like, I have no children.
Marc:And there's no reason for me to be in anything I'm not comfortable in.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And life is, this is it.
Marc:It is it.
Guest:You're going to stay in a situation unnecessarily that is ultimately lying to the other person.
Marc:I don't owe anyone my life.
Guest:I think that's, I mean, yeah, of course it's hard, but it's the right thing to do.
Marc:Did your parents, are they married?
Marc:Are they alive?
Guest:They're alive and married.
Marc:So they stuck in it.
Marc:What?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You got good modeling on that?
Guest:Yeah, they're so sweet, man.
Guest:It gets to a point, and I feel somewhat, I can see it around the corner, where you just accept shit, man.
Marc:You have to, man.
Marc:You get too old.
Marc:You've got to put the shield down.
Marc:You've got to put the sword down on some level.
Guest:You've got to.
Guest:And just...
Guest:Just accept that it's just not the way you thought it might be.
Marc:And also it's okay.
Guest:You hoped it would be.
Guest:It is okay.
Marc:And a lot of the shit we were all worked up about doesn't fucking matter anymore.
Guest:It doesn't matter, babe.
Marc:Isn't that great?
Marc:In the big picture, it doesn't matter.
Marc:It doesn't fucking matter.
Marc:Yeah, I would just like to live my life without being put in a camp of some kind, if that's possible.
Guest:Sorry.
Marc:Did I buzzkill?
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:I was just immediately thinking, what would we do?
Guest:What would we do?
Marc:What would we do?
Marc:We'd be like, well, so who's got some good camp jokes?
Marc:Where were you born?
Guest:I was born in London.
Guest:On a very brief trip back to London.
Guest:We were living in Zambia.
Marc:My family.
Marc:Explain.
Marc:See, now, I don't know that I've ever met.
Marc:Oh, you know, I may have talked to one.
Marc:other person from zambia from not from zambia but his roots and the yolo how do you say his name yolo david a yellow oh oh thank christ yes david a yellow oh yes david now we made a movie together he's lovely but where's i can't remember what we've talked about where are his roots doesn't he come nigeria so he's nigeria but he comes from royalty too
Guest:Does he?
Marc:I think he does.
Marc:Don't you?
Guest:I do.
Guest:I do.
Guest:My mom was a princess.
Guest:She is a princess.
Marc:Still a princess.
Guest:She is, yeah, according to Zimbabwean African lineages.
Marc:Now, how did your family get here?
Guest:So my mom is from Zimbabwe.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she went to London...
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Sweet mama.
Guest:She her whole family, her whole town saved up because she was the youngest of like eight children, but was a real little firecracker.
Guest:And everyone pitched in for a one way ticket to England when she was just her 20s.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They didn't.
Guest:There wasn't a lot.
Marc:And the king let her go.
Guest:Her dad was no longer alive.
Guest:But let me explain about the royal lineages there, because it's not like one king for the whole of Zimbabwe.
Guest:Because, you know, back in the day, there were, you know, small villages and each village, each town had a royal family.
Marc:Like a clan situation?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it's like, in a way, it's now like the mayor.
Guest:got it they would call him kings and queens but it was like the mayor so she came she came to england to train to be a nurse she got her qualifications went straight back because that's the point that is noble shit man oh god and uh the experience she had in england was was interesting as you can imagine just a lot of racism a lot of uh but then went back to zambia where she had a
Guest:a job in the hospital, and my dad was there.
Guest:He was training in the laboratory.
Guest:He was interested in music back in England.
Guest:He's from a tiny town on the coast of England.
Guest:He'd never traveled anywhere further than London.
Guest:And back in those days...
Guest:Africa was encouraging people from England, America to come and bring their skills.
Guest:So there was no like red tape anywhere, immigration, that kind of stuff.
Guest:So he was there.
Guest:And the reason he went to Africa is because he wanted to go to where the roots of the blues came from because he loved blues.
Guest:And he knew it wasn't America.
Guest:He knew those syncopated beats were Africa.
Marc:But were they from that part of Africa?
Guest:I think it was probably... Senegal, maybe?
Guest:Yeah, it was probably more west, but he wanted to go to Africa because he wanted to go to the Roots of Blues.
Marc:That's so wild.
Guest:So he just got the map, closed his eyes, put his finger, it was Zambia, and there he was.
Guest:So I am a fluke, man.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:Big old fluke.
Marc:Did he find the Roots of the Blues?
Marc:No.
Marc:Your old man?
Guest:Yeah, my mom.
Guest:She had a black eye.
Guest:We fell in love with her at the party where she had this big afro and one dodgy eye, and that was the end of it.
Marc:Oh, that's a sweet story.
Marc:And then they both go back to England?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They were only supposed to go back for a short while, but his dad was unwell, so they ended up sticking around.
Marc:So he comes from there.
Marc:Where did he come from?
Marc:Thornwall.
Marc:Okay, so he grew up there.
Guest:And they came from completely different worlds, cultures, environments.
Guest:So no wonder it's tricky to be the child of these two people.
Guest:There is no place.
Marc:Tricky for them culturally.
Guest:For me.
Marc:Right, but not with them.
Guest:No, not with them.
Guest:It makes perfect sense with them.
Marc:No, but I mean, you're okay with them.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah, I'm really good with them.
Marc:Right, but the judgment that comes down.
Guest:It was hard.
Marc:I can't imagine it.
Guest:It was so fucking hard.
Guest:My mom struggled hard to keep my brother and I protected from just the ignorance and cynicism of people.
Marc:Did you feel it when you were younger?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:In retrospect, yeah.
Guest:But I didn't have an explanation for why people didn't want to be my friend.
Guest:I didn't have an explanation for why.
Marc:Because you're a kid.
Guest:Well, I mean, I guess mom could have explained it, but that's not what you did in those days.
Marc:So you mean you always just felt, as you got older, that you just felt weird?
Guest:I was just not attractive.
Guest:I was even no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't a favorite ever.
Guest:I was always passed over.
Marc:You mean in school?
Guest:In school, always in trouble.
Guest:Oh, my God, for doing fuck all.
Guest:It was like, well, it was a Catholic nuns.
Marc:You went to a Catholic school?
Marc:None.
Guest:It was the best school in the town.
Marc:Whose idea was that?
Guest:Well, it was the best school, the best education.
Guest:And I remember, I don't remember this actually, but I feel like I do.
Guest:You've been told.
Guest:Five years old.
Guest:And mom took me to the gates where Miss Wilmington, who wasn't a nun, the only one who wasn't a nun, met us at the gate.
Guest:And she said to my mom, we're all very excited because we've never had one before.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:So mom had to put my hand in her hand and walk away.
Guest:You were the one.
Guest:That's the price she had to pay for my education.
Guest:But for mom, my mom had to leave home at five years old to go and get an education.
Marc:She had your interest at heart.
Marc:Oh, without a doubt.
Marc:But did not quite fathom the hardships you might have encountered.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know, she she had managed.
Marc:So I guess like that every day, you know, wearing a uniform and being the only black kid in the whole school.
Guest:Babe, she she braided my hair in this pretty style for the school photo.
Guest:And I was sent home.
Guest:What?
Guest:You know, because it was too ghetto.
Guest:Like, it was inappropriate.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:I felt so ashamed.
Guest:Oh, God, it's so terrible.
Guest:But also, the added thing is, is that I felt so embarrassed for her.
Guest:And I almost didn't want to be the thing that goes home and goes, you did wrong, Mom.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Of course.
Marc:Well, that's because we... Right.
Marc:It's our fault.
Guest:I felt so awful.
Guest:It was just... It was that constantly...
Marc:That's so complicated because your mom wasn't really explaining things to you.
Guest:No, no, because she didn't take the high ground because we were the imposters in a way.
Marc:She felt that way too.
Guest:I can't say that.
Guest:I mean, I can't speak for her.
Guest:But at that time, because there were so few people of color, she couldn't stand up and go, hey, all of you.
Guest:You've all got it wrong.
Guest:We deserve to be here.
Guest:Like it was still like we had to prove ourselves worthy of being there in a way.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, so I was a good girl, but I couldn't help myself.
Guest:I was also very naughty.
Guest:You know, I just was spirited and just used to like making people laugh nonstop.
Guest:I see it in my kids and it is glorious.
Guest:But with me, it was like the worst thing.
Marc:So on top of being the other and the only one, you're you're causing shit.
Guest:Cause and shit, just, you know, just funny and bright.
Marc:Did people like you?
Guest:I think the ones that did were the rebels.
Guest:The ones who didn't mind other people going, you're friends with her?
Guest:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, there were so many fucked up things, but my God, I feel like I've been kind of...
Guest:The blacksmith really worked on my soul.
Guest:Bashed it, bashed it, put it in the flames, bashed it again, and I am sharp now.
Guest:I am fucking sharp.
Marc:What came at you at that point?
Marc:Was it violent?
Marc:Was it hostile?
Marc:Or was it just sort of kid shit?
Guest:Um, kid shit.
Guest:I guess the most significant one, I was 12, 13, and I'd become friends with a girl who was the most popular girl in the school.
Guest:By this point, by the way, I've gone to a boarding school because I was really, really- Good political move.
Good political move.
Marc:Instinctual.
Guest:Yeah, you know.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The most popular girl in the school.
Guest:But I'll tell you why.
Guest:Because, so I was really talented, started dancing, which was great, because I could really let rip then.
Guest:And no one was going to tell me off.
Guest:So I went to this dance school from the age of like three years old.
Guest:And I just kept, I was doing really good.
Guest:And almost to sort of get rid of me, she's like, I think that she should audition for a proper dancing school.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:So that was up in London, which was hours away from where we were.
Guest:And I got two scholarships to go.
Marc:That's great.
Guest:My parents didn't have any dosh, but there I was.
Marc:Going to the big city.
Guest:Going to the big city.
Guest:So I got there, and of course, no friends.
Guest:Only black kid.
Guest:But I was used to that.
Marc:The only black kid again?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:What year was this?
Guest:This is, oh, frick.
Marc:I mean, 80s, early 80s.
Marc:How is that possible?
Guest:82, 83.
Guest:Because you had to have money, man, to go to this school.
Guest:But I had two scholarships.
Guest:I had two grants to go.
Guest:Anyway, and there was a girl who was the most popular girl in the school.
Guest:This isn't the first time that I was there.
Guest:Her dad was Roger Whittaker.
Guest:Do you remember Roger Whittaker?
Marc:I'd like to.
Guest:The whistling guy.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Speed bonnie bow like a bird on the wing.
Guest:No, anyway.
Guest:He's a British pop star?
Guest:He was Kenyan, white Kenyan.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:Huge in the 70s and 80s.
Guest:Okay, okay.
Guest:Huge in Canada and Germany.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:But Jessica had it all.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The mansion in the countryside, everything.
Guest:It's pretty there, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And over one school holiday, all the girls in our year decided to send Jessica to Coventry, which is where you don't talk to her.
Guest:I mean, girls are brutal, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And because I wasn't part of the, no one talked to me really.
Marc:You weren't the clique.
Guest:No, I was on the outside.
Guest:And I remember hearing about this, that they were going to do this to her when she got back to school because she was coming back a couple of days late.
Marc:Why were they on her?
Guest:Because she was too big for her boots because she was just too gorgeous, too fabulous, had everything.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So collectively, they decided to just bring her down.
Guest:So she came back to the school.
Guest:I remember it.
Guest:She walked across the room and all the girls just turned away.
Guest:And she just sashayed out.
Guest:I swear to God, she sashayed out and just said, well, I don't give a fuck anyway.
Guest:But I found her later crying in the toilet.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:In the thing.
Guest:And she had never even looked at me, seen me, just barely noticed me.
Guest:And I just said to her, look, these people are crap.
Guest:Don't worry about it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so from being the one that she would never have spoken to, she and I became the best friends, sisters from then on.
Guest:Oh, she is my sister.
Guest:Today.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was the most unpopular.
Guest:She was the most popular.
Guest:And because we were both ostracized, we came together and it is alchemy, magic.
Marc:It's so nice that it stayed.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Because that could easily be one of those stories where once the other girls started liking her again.
Marc:See, what's your name again?
Guest:No, because she because she loved me and they were full of shit.
Guest:And so she her dad had this big party.
Guest:This is back to the 13 year old.
Guest:She has that had this big party.
Guest:And Jessica was also very, very popular with the boys because she was gorgeous.
Guest:She kind of looked older than she was and all that shit.
Guest:And so her dad was going to have this huge marquee party in the holidays.
Guest:The whistler guy?
Marc:The whistling guy, yeah.
Guest:To mark 50 years of his life and 25 years in the business.
Guest:And I got to go.
Guest:I was going to go.
Guest:And there were going to be like five boys and five girls that were allowed to go to this adult party.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so she hooked me up with her boyfriend's best mate in this other boarding school.
Guest:And we wrote to each other, me and this boy, for maybe a month or two.
Guest:And I was a good little writer because I was a smart girl.
Guest:And I imagined how I could be confident, but even though I wasn't, right?
Guest:So we turned up at this party we'd never met and he didn't talk to me.
Guest:And we had this wonderful exchange of letters.
Guest:It was on, man.
Guest:He didn't talk to me.
Guest:And then that was during the day.
Guest:And then there were another couple of like little teas and everyone going out to play tennis.
Guest:And he wouldn't look at me, wouldn't talk to me.
Guest:And I just gave up and thought, OK, well, he, you know, obviously doesn't like me.
Guest:Although I will say that I got so fucking drunk, I was so upset by the end of the night because all the girls had hooked up with all the boys, including the one boy that hadn't hooked up, hooked up with one of the girls who'd already hooked up with someone else rather than be with me.
Guest:So I was... It was the worst time.
Guest:It was the worst thing that could ever happen.
Guest:And I thought it was because I just was not attractive because I'd always been unattractive all through my life.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Also, I thought.
Guest:So months later...
Guest:maybe years later, because Jessica was too ashamed to tell me, that she had found him at the party and said, what are you doing?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You and Tandy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he said to her, you didn't tell me she was black.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:And what was great, Mark, was as soon as she told me that, I was like, oh, he's a dick.
Marc:Oh, right.
Marc:Yeah, as opposed to there's something wrong with me.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah, so that kind of...
Guest:It's been an issue.
Guest:It was an issue all through my childhood just not knowing why and having to make – and the assumption was always – because racism wasn't – it wasn't clear to me.
Guest:It hadn't been explained to me.
Marc:That's odd.
Marc:Did you –
Guest:I didn't know what it was.
Guest:I honestly didn't know.
Marc:It wasn't until... No, I get it.
Marc:But it is sort of like in the hands of your parents, right, on some level.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:But maybe they thought it was obvious.
Guest:My mom's black.
Guest:I'm looking at her.
Guest:There she is.
Guest:But I just see she's my mom.
Guest:She's beautiful.
Guest:I don't look at her and think she's black.
Guest:I literally didn't... She didn't look any different to anyone else to me.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:I guess maybe it's better to have figured it out retroactively.
Guest:I think so.
Marc:Yeah, as opposed to... Because I've heard other black people I've talked to, that sense of constant awareness of otherness because of that... Oh, yeah.
Marc:...was not the first place you went.
Marc:It was just that I'm unlikable.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But if you're... I guess it's...
Guest:There's a part of me that never grew, I think, you know, as a result of that.
Marc:Right, because you were sort of living in a lie to a degree.
Guest:I just, I never... Stunted.
Guest:I don't think I ever truly... I was never there.
Guest:I was always... I didn't have a sense of myself at all.
Guest:It was just, can I... Am I allowed to be in this room now?
Guest:Or...
Guest:I didn't, I didn't, I didn't know who I was.
Guest:I was just, it's like I was, I was nothing.
Marc:Did it having a white father complicate things in the sense that like maybe you didn't see yourself completely as a, as an identity wise person?
Guest:No, he validated me as part of the community.
Guest:Right.
Guest:He's my dad.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:So if people don't like me, it's because I'm unlikable.
Marc:But it sounds like what you're saying is that your identity wasn't tied into blackness.
Marc:No.
Marc:But outside of that- Who are you?
Marc:You weren't sure who you were.
Guest:Well, because I didn't have many friends.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I get it.
Marc:I didn't like- So what changed?
Guest:uh god well i suppose what i was always doing was feeding my mind with literature and yeah you know and you read a book and unless it's specifically spelt out like this person is black right but so i was learning about the inner workings of all of us through novels and um but
Guest:And then I became an actress and I was more comfortable in the roles I was playing.
Guest:I felt free.
Guest:I felt relaxed.
Marc:When you were reading and stuff, which stuff really kind of put things into perspective for you the most?
Guest:Oh, the big sweeping dramas.
Guest:Madame Bovary.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:just, I guess, English literature.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, sure.
Guest:Sweeping stories of romance.
Guest:My favorite book was Mill on the Floss, George Eliot.
Guest:You know, it's actually stories of women who aren't understood and who just fight for a sense of value and worth in themselves.
Guest:I really, I think I really felt a kinship with that stuff.
Marc:So when you went to the dance school,
Marc:How long did you stay there?
Guest:Till I was 18.
Marc:So you were there a couple years?
Guest:No, I was there from 12 to 18.
Marc:Okay, so that's a long time.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I got my full education.
Guest:Then I went to university and read anthropology, and that's what turned things around.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:But you decided dance was not your future.
Guest:I had an injury, but I couldn't do it anymore.
Marc:Oh, no shit.
Guest:When I was 16.
Guest:And I thought, fuck, what am I going to do?
Guest:You know, dancing was everything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I also felt really good when I was doing it, you know, because everything, all the other shit disappeared.
Guest:And then this audition for a movie came along because our school was well known.
Guest:You could either like study drama, you could study music, you could study.
Guest:And even though I wasn't a drama student, I was the only black girl in the school again.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So they were like, well, they want an African-looking girl, so just go along for the day.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's your lucky day, black girl.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Lucky day, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, kind of.
Marc:Today's your big day.
Guest:Big day.
Guest:Go and pretend to be a drama student.
Guest:And because I guess I probably felt a bit like you do as an actor.
Guest:It's like, am I really an actor?
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:But you really had not prepared for it.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:And I didn't care.
Guest:And I think it was that, like...
Guest:Because it didn't matter if I got it or not.
Guest:The good thing had already happened, which is I had a free trip to London.
Guest:That's great.
Guest:Went to a fancy hotel to meet this director.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:And I took a little bit of direction.
Guest:And he said, because I did it really badly, because I didn't know what acting was.
Guest:I assumed you had to just...
Marc:It was for a movie?
Guest:Yeah, it was for a movie.
Guest:And I assumed you had to sort of speak like this.
Guest:And he was just flabbergasted by how shit it was.
Guest:And then he gave me a bit of direction, which was basically, you know, just convince me that everything you're saying is occurring to you just in this moment.
Guest:And I said, oh, you want me to lie?
Guest:And he went away for a few minutes, let me prepare, came back, and it was a whole new deal because, my God, I could lie well.
Guest:Because I'd kind of had to.
Guest:I'd had to for a long time.
Marc:For why?
Marc:Why do you think that?
Guest:Well, when I was a kid, it's like, are you feeling comfortable in this situation?
Guest:Totally, yes.
Guest:Not at all.
Marc:Oh, right, right, right.
Marc:You know.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Also, when you're a troublemaker, you've got to lie at first.
Guest:A lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I didn't do it.
Guest:So that was that.
Guest:That was that.
Marc:But that's sort of what it is, isn't it?
Marc:I said that once before where it's like, if you've ever had to lie...
Marc:To save your ass and you pulled it off, you're probably an okay actor.
Guest:I think, yeah.
Guest:Definitely, in fact.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:If you had to lie to get away with some shit.
Guest:But it's also, it's like you're winning the game.
Guest:If you can convince someone of something, it's fun.
Guest:It's a game.
Guest:It's just like being a kid.
Yeah.
Marc:Well, I don't like it's like I understand some people get off on that.
Marc:And there are people that do.
Marc:I've always been impressed with people that do broader characters or really immerse themselves in characters to sort of fuck with people.
Marc:I've never had the sort of heart for that.
Marc:I can't do that.
Marc:I don't like doing that to people.
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, I guess you've come at it.
Guest:You've only been acting, you know, a decade.
Guest:You know, I really love that.
Guest:I love it.
Guest:I played Condoleezza Rice once.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I saw that in W. Yeah.
Marc:So did you get the part?
Guest:Oh, yes, I did.
Guest:It was a movie called Flirting.
Guest:It was in Australia with... I remember that movie.
Marc:That was a big movie.
Guest:Nicole Kidman.
Marc:Yes, that was like her big movie too when she was a kid.
Guest:Well, no, Nicole Kidman was a big star already.
Guest:Was she?
Guest:Well, she was a big star in Australia.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And Naomi Watts.
Guest:But yeah, it was a big deal.
Marc:That's a big deal.
Guest:It was a big deal.
Guest:But it could have been just an episode of a TV show.
Guest:I was thrilled to be there.
Guest:So excited.
Marc:Where does anthropology come in?
Guest:I went to Cambridge to study anthropology after.
Guest:I finished that movie.
Guest:Oh, because I've got an African mother, okay?
Guest:So for her, education is like, education will save you from certain death.
Guest:right gotta go and so there i made this film which was a big sidestep from the dancing which my parents had but it's a celebrated movie right you know i mean it was it was good yeah it did good but in the meantime i still i wasn't going to dance i wasn't going to i wanted to be a dancer that wasn't going to happen because of my injury so i just just while i was sort of trying to figure out what i was going to do next i went back to school got my a levels and then applied for cambridge and i got in it's big deal cambridge
Guest:It's a big, it is a big deal.
Guest:And so it should be.
Guest:It's really, really impressive.
Guest:And I got to study anthropology, which I is.
Marc:For four years you did?
Guest:Three.
Guest:And I still study it.
Marc:So why'd you choose that?
Guest:Because I knew that I wanted to be an actor.
Guest:Really?
Marc:That was the reason?
Guest:No, not because of anthropology.
Guest:I knew what I wanted to do, so I wasn't studying something in order to be something, like a doctor or a lawyer.
Guest:So it's like, what can I do that's just going to expand my mind?
Marc:Dig it.
Guest:And it sounded really cool.
Guest:I also was aware that I was pretty disconnected from my African heritage and, of course, with anthropology.
Guest:Africa is a huge part of what we study.
Marc:Everything comes from there.
Guest:It does indeed.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Mitochondrial Eve.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And it just seemed like a really nice way to spend three years while I was figuring out, while I was just getting old enough to be a person in the world.
Marc:So you're like 18, 19?
Guest:When I went to uni, I was 18.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So you needed your mind to be blown.
Guest:It was blown.
Guest:Okay, so listen to this.
Guest:I go for my meeting for Cambridge and she asks me the question, how do you determine race?
Guest:What would be the factor that you would?
Marc:This is in the interview.
Marc:This is in my interview.
Guest:And I thought for a second and I said, skin color.
Guest:And she said, hmm.
Guest:So that's biology then.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And she said, well, that's interesting because there is more biological difference.
Guest:between a black Kenyan and a black Ugandan than there is between a black Kenyan and a pale skinned white Swiss person because people have been in Africa for so much longer the gene pool
Guest:has been changing for so long that there's actually more variation between people with dark skin than there is between a dark skin person and a pale skin person.
Guest:So in terms of biology, race is a complete made up illusion.
Guest:In terms of black, white being, you are less different from each other if you are white and black than if you're both black.
Marc:Wow, so that's day one.
Marc:That's the interview.
Guest:That was the interview.
Guest:My mind was like, yeah, it was blown.
Guest:And because it was so blown, and I'm sitting there and I'm a, in quotes, black person, she's like, you need to come here and you need to learn some stuff and take it out into the world.
Guest:And yeah, it gave me a sense of place, which is everywhere.
Guest:And an ease and a calm.
Guest:I felt so...
Guest:It's like it takes you from being on the ground, surrounded by the shit, to a bird's eye view where you can just see the patterns everywhere of why we do what we do as a humanity.
Guest:And you look at over history.
Guest:History with anthropology is talking like 300,000 years.
Guest:And you just see these patterns that humans fall into.
Marc:Isn't it nice that you get a worldview that you can integrate into your personality?
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:I just, I mean, I accept things way quicker.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:As soon as I was.
Marc:Like if you have a context that works, you know, so, you know, you can do right for yourself and right for others, you know, but also see the expanse of it.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:It's amazing.
Guest:And I went from feeling like I didn't belong anywhere to I literally belong everywhere.
Marc:I am of the world.
Guest:And all of us are.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, that's the message.
Guest:It was magical.
Guest:Magical.
Guest:And then there I was as an actress playing people from all over the world, kind of.
Guest:Although that's all changed because there's a lot of specificity now.
Guest:People want to, like, if there's a movie where the lead is trans, you've got to be trans.
Guest:If there's a movie where the person's Brazilian, you've got to be Brazilian.
Marc:Yes, it makes sense to me.
Guest:But people want to see themselves on screen because screen is so important.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Like, if you're not represented, then there's nothing to reflect for younger people.
Guest:It's like you're not relevant.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And so you're trying to adjust and adapt and become something that you're not because you don't know the other way or how a person like you exists in the world.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Dig it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know what it's like.
Guest:It's like someone sees themselves on the news in the background of a reporter and they show all their friends four weeks.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Look at me.
Guest:I was on.
Guest:Because they feel...
Marc:that they're validated yeah that i guess that's like one yeah that's a i i can see that right that's an exciting thing i'm on tv yeah so you want you but that's me on tv like you got to watch i was on the news but to see somebody who's like you with a cultural background or has the same yes sort of you don't want to see yourself being played by someone who isn't you but who gets to be you because they're more important than you
Marc:Right.
Marc:And also, you'd like to see you represented, period.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Being played is one thing.
Marc:There was a long period of time where there was no representation at all.
Marc:At all.
Marc:No one was playing anybody.
Marc:No.
Guest:It was just one type of person that was allowed to get up there.
Marc:I think that...
Marc:Not long ago did I really put that together because of Geena Davis's movie and that movie that she helped produce about the directors in Hollywood.
Marc:She's part of this documentary where she just realized that little girls are only represented in very specific ways when they're younger.
Marc:I'll show it to you after.
Marc:So how are they going to model themselves?
Marc:What are they going to model themselves after?
Marc:How can they have any hope then to be anything other than this small, you know, myopic, you know, these very few choices about modeling themselves when men and little boys have the whole world and girls are like, you can't be a ballerina or, you know, and I, and I,
Marc:It's so true, isn't it?
Marc:Well, it takes into consideration, yeah, the power of the medium and of entertainment and of – Absolutely.
Marc:And how much it dictates our lives.
Marc:And it's like when you really kind of – unlike that moment you had when you got anthropology in your head, there's that moment where you realize, oh, my God, this is a fucking travesty.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:And I could have gone through my whole life thinking that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:We need to – You've got to have your mind blown.
Guest:There are really important things to learn.
Yeah.
Marc:Right now, specifically because we're up against some real fascistic shit on a global- Which relies on ignorance.
Marc:Sure, and promotes ignorance and promotes misinformation.
Marc:But it's a global trend.
Marc:Whatever progress we've made as humans, it's tentative in the face of that might of ignorance.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So there's a real fight to be fought.
Marc:Like, even with the stuff around being woke and around women, like, you know, I talked to Eve Ensor.
Guest:I know who's a dear, dear friend of mine.
Marc:Yeah, I love her.
Guest:I'm on the board of V-Day with Eve.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I'm actually, that was another, my mind was blown because I met Eve when I was 21.
Guest:Oh, wow.
Guest:And I saw her performing.
Guest:She was on a world tour of the Vagina Monologues.
Guest:And she was performing at this pub in Islington in London.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:And I went along.
Guest:A friend of mine had said, Were you at Cambridge?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:uh just finished okay so you just finished and and you were like gonna go back to acting i was still acting yeah that's how i was told about eve is that my did you act at cambridge as well oh all the way through oh yeah yeah always i was always on the motorway going up to london to get on a plane to go and make i made five movies when i was at cambridge it was nuts okay it was nutty
Marc:Okay.
Guest:So I met Eve and my life was turned around.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:How so?
Guest:She, well, first of all, just hearing her on stage, just the experiences of women that she'd obviously met and interviewed.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Just the taboo nature of everything that she was saying and how that was opening people up to feeling that they weren't the only ones who were ashamed of their bodies, who'd been sexually abused.
Guest:And I spoke to her afterwards and within minutes I was talking about my own sexual abuse.
Guest:And she was smiling at me and proud of me, and I didn't feel ashamed.
Guest:And she took shame away from my experience just by encountering me.
Marc:Just by listening empathetically.
Guest:Listening to me and saying, rather than making me feel like a victim, I was a survivor.
Guest:And I was radiant in that.
Marc:And also so very not alone.
Guest:So very not alone.
Guest:And so she and I became friends and I start and because I was an actress at that point.
Guest:I was already I was 21.
Guest:I was I'd been in a few movies.
Guest:I was on the rise.
Marc:So you did you did like Jefferson in Paris interview with a vampire when you were at Cambridge.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But Jefferson in Paris, Sally Hemings' character is like a hell of a bit of business.
Guest:And you know what?
Guest:At that time, there was no DNA to support the truth of that.
Guest:That happened after the movie.
Guest:So we were speculating.
Guest:But I mean, to go to the house of Thomas Jefferson and be served your lunch by young men who looked exactly like Thomas Jefferson, who were Sally Hemings' children, it's mind-blowing.
Guest:Wow.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:America has come a long way.
Marc:Yeah, it's come too long to go back.
Guest:It's come a long, long way.
Guest:It's inspiring, really.
Marc:So, yeah, when I spoke to Eve, there was definitely a period, that engagement with her.
Marc:I was sort of in awe of her to begin with.
Guest:Her book, The Apology is just a revelation.
Marc:Come on.
Guest:It's a whole new way of thinking, a whole new way of claiming your freedom.
Marc:It was something else.
Marc:And I just read it on a whim because I get a lot of stuff sent to me.
Guest:You knew.
Marc:And I'm like, I got it.
Guest:You knew.
Guest:I'm so glad you guys spoke because you encountered her so beautifully.
Guest:You were so open.
Guest:But you allowed the book to really challenge you.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And obviously that is, of course, because Eve is so ready to accept a new way of thinking.
Guest:She's so open, you know.
Marc:Yeah, she's great.
Marc:And I used to see her around New York.
Marc:I've always really was.
Marc:There are certain people in your life that you don't know when it's going to happen or how, but you need to be with them.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:For a minute or two.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And you got to and you had such a great conversation.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But she's like I was emailing her just this morning.
Guest:I love Eve.
Guest:She's extraordinary.
Guest:And we do a lot of great work together.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:She does great work.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which organization?
Guest:V-Day.
Marc:Right.
Guest:So I'm on the board of V-Day.
Marc:Congo's heavy, man.
Guest:It is.
Guest:But my God, to go there and see what with so little these people, these women are achieving in their lives.
Guest:And they've come back from the dead in psychologically and emotionally.
Guest:They were destroyed by the violence, the sexual violence that they've experienced.
Guest:And it's rape is a weapon of war.
Guest:Mm hmm.
Guest:And to have the realization, because Eve went to Congo.
Guest:The vagina monologues completely dictated Eve's life.
Guest:She's just followed where the call is.
Guest:And she didn't even want to go to Congo because she knew it was going to just take over and be.
Guest:And it's the epicenter of the worst that can happen to a woman.
Guest:It's the worst place in the world to be a woman.
Guest:I've read once.
Guest:Have you gone?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So she went and there's an amazing gynecologist called Dr. Mukwege who won the Nobel Prize two years ago who physically heals women.
Guest:There are two hospitals in the whole of Congo where if you can get there, they will surgically try and put you back together.
Guest:Most women don't survive.
Jeez.
Guest:It's called the Pansy Hospital.
Marc:But this is ongoing, this assault?
Marc:Oh, love.
Marc:What is the social structure around it?
Guest:Well, within Congo, Congo is huge and is obviously many neighboring countries.
Marc:I know she probably told me this stuff.
Guest:No, no, not when I heard your thing.
Guest:And neighboring countries which are going through their own conflict.
Guest:And Congo is not like the borders aren't well policed.
Guest:So you just militias go in from other places.
Guest:Congo is very rich with resources.
Guest:So very quickly they can gain enough resources.
Guest:money to then buy more weapons and leave.
Guest:But the way they get the money is by mining for minerals.
Guest:And you go to an area and there's no roads.
Guest:So you can be hidden in forests.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And have the men unable to help the women and have the children witness all of that happening.
Guest:And then those male children are taken away and told that what's happened to their family, their mothers and sisters raped and their fathers murdered, the people that did this, we're going to go get them.
Guest:And then they're trained up to be boy soldiers.
Guest:And this is systematic.
Guest:And it works.
Guest:And it's free.
Guest:You know, you can destroy an entire community and you don't even need any, you don't need finances to do it.
Guest:You just... So when Eve went to Congo and met Dr. Mukwege, who has...
Guest:You know, surgically managed to heal many, many, many women.
Guest:She said, what do we do?
Guest:What can I help?
Guest:How can I help?
Guest:And he said, well, women, I can physically heal women, but it's their minds and their hearts and their spirits that I can't.
Guest:So that's why she developed with women in Congo, with survivors from Pansy.
Guest:She said, what are we going to do?
Marc:It's called Pansy?
Guest:Pansy Hospital is where Dr. McGregor works.
Guest:And so they said, we need a safe space where we can be together and not feel ashamed and get strong enough so we can go back to our communities who have rejected us and be proud and survive.
Guest:So within, it's called the City of Joy, named by the women themselves.
Guest:That's what they wanted it to be called.
Guest:And it teaches them self-defense, how to use a computer, how to have a bank account, group therapy, all the things that are going to give you the mental and emotional confidence to be a leader.
Guest:And we've had now six years of graduates because you can be there for six months.
Guest:And you have to have leadership potential to go there.
Guest:That's the other thing.
Guest:But within six months, these women have left.
Guest:There's a documentary about it on Netflix called City of Joy, which charts the growth of the, well, about Dr. Mukwege, his meeting with Eve, and it charts the nine years to the City of Joy.
Guest:And it's flourishing.
Guest:It's amazing.
Guest:And it is, we need Congo.
Guest:40% of minerals that are used in electronics goods come from there.
Guest:And that's what these different militia are using to sell, to get money for their arms.
Guest:So it is a system which has been in place for over 15 years.
Guest:And it's not known by most people.
Guest:So that's where I go on my time off.
Guest:You do?
Guest:Yeah, get to the City of Joy, hang out with my friends.
Guest:Just to sit down and say to a woman who has been devastated by sexual violence to say, I was sexually abused too.
Guest:They can't believe it.
Guest:You were sexually abused, but you're from over there.
Guest:I'm like, yeah.
Guest:Power is the... The corruption and power is the same everywhere.
Guest:And just for them to feel like there's someone from over there.
Marc:Sure, that it's a global thing.
Guest:Yeah, and that's going to maybe try and help.
Guest:But what I get back to is...
Guest:What happened to me, Mark, is nothing.
Guest:I don't give a shit.
Guest:It helped me be here now.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would not have met Eve.
Guest:I would not have helped these women that I know.
Guest:Jane and Christine and all of them.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Right.
Marc:It changed the way you saw yourself in the world.
Guest:I have a purpose which is so much bigger than anything I could ever have imagined.
Marc:Because of trauma.
Guest:Because of my trauma.
Marc:What happened?
Guest:Um...
Guest:I was... And the reason I pause is because... You don't have to tell me.
Guest:No, it's not because it's prehistory.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Because I don't give a fuck about that person.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:The person.
Marc:Oh, the person.
Guest:I don't give a fuck about them.
Guest:I was a virgin and I was... It was statutory rape.
Guest:The director that I was working with.
Guest:Well, that had hired me when I was 16.
Guest:And I...
Marc:not the guy who directed flirting yes um but and it was a it was a bleak time those 10 years i was robbed of a lot but again in in talking about even when you were younger around being different how long did it take you to frame it properly
Guest:Oh, my goodness.
Marc:I mean, like what?
Guest:Because I was the perfect victim, love.
Guest:I had such low self-esteem.
Guest:I had no sense of self.
Guest:It was all about, I absolutely bowed down to authority completely because it gave me permission to just be.
Marc:And also you wanted to be part of this thing.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, also it was a movie.
Guest:That's like fantasy land.
Marc:So was it a negotiation?
Guest:What do you mean?
Marc:Did he ask you to do something to be in the movie?
Guest:No, no, I was happily doing the movie.
Guest:My dad, it was in Australia.
Guest:My dad was with me, bless his heart, as my chaperone.
Guest:My dad got super bored because I was having a nice time.
Guest:I was 16, like, woo, this is amazing.
Guest:Yeah, you're in a movie.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And after a month, my dad just thought I was having a great time.
Guest:I was a teenager.
Guest:And he said, look, I'm going to head back home.
Guest:You're clearly OK.
Guest:And he actually got the director promised that, well, to my dad.
Guest:I found out later that he would take care of me.
Guest:And he said, you know, I'll look after Tandy.
Guest:I'll take her out for dinner the night you leave to make her feel.
Guest:And that was the night.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:Fuck, man.
Guest:Yeah, pretty rough.
Guest:And went on for a long time.
Marc:Past the shooting of the movie?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Because it was a mind control, too.
Guest:Because I'd never had sex.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It's a mind fucker.
Guest:It was like, this is what it is.
Marc:Yeah, right.
Marc:You know?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And even if I felt uncomfortable, which I really did, and afraid, which I really did,
Guest:I thought that's what you did feel when... I thought that's what... Yeah, that's the way it was supposed to be.
Guest:Yeah, to be afraid and to feel a bit uncomfortable.
Guest:You know, it's so taboo.
Guest:No one fucking talks about it.
Guest:So, okay, this is what it is.
Guest:And it was when I was... As time went on, I was feeling more and more...
Guest:It was clearly not pleasure.
Guest:And the fact that it was secret too.
Guest:I was asked to keep it a secret.
Marc:Really?
Marc:For the whole time?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, for two years, certainly.
Guest:And then I started... I was very unwell.
Guest:I had a terrible eating disorder.
Guest:I had a lot of shame.
Guest:And I didn't really understand why.
Guest:I just knew I was killing myself.
Guest:There was something... And I left that situation.
Guest:Like I said, this has to stop.
Guest:Because I just... I was having really bad physical symptoms...
Guest:around the food and stuff yeah but just like the feeling of my it was just I wanted my body to disappear I just felt gross but I couldn't blame that person I had to blame myself for that feeling it's like I didn't even know why I was doing anything it was just like instruction do it and I came from it was a movie I was in a fucking school uniform in that movie I played a school girl it's like you do what your teacher tells you I mean I can't
Marc:But also you had that, it was sort of from when you were younger too, you had this kind of, who am I, you know, thing.
Guest:And also very powerful figure.
Guest:And I was getting the attention.
Guest:That's a lot.
Guest:I had powerful figures that were just fucking, couldn't wait to get rid of me.
Marc:Because I, you know, as a child.
Guest:Well, because I was, yeah, I was black, pain in the ass.
Marc:But you think the eating disorder definitely manifested from that?
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, physically, the shame.
Guest:Just wanting to just like literally disappear and get my just get to vomit out the feeling.
Guest:The shame.
Guest:And so I went to a therapist.
Guest:I actually called my girlfriend I told you about, who I met when I was a child, Jessica.
Guest:I called her one night and I thought I was going to die.
Guest:My heart was being so hard in my chest and I was so thin and I was so scared.
Guest:And I called and I said, I'm frightened and this is what's been happening.
Guest:And so I went to a therapist for the first time.
Guest:And within minutes, this therapist had connected my shame and eating to being sexually abused.
Guest:And I just didn't have the knowledge.
Guest:And of course, the following day, I stopped hurting myself physically.
Guest:Really?
Guest:The following day.
Marc:Because you're very open to having your mind blown, and it did.
Marc:It did.
Marc:And you're like, of course.
Guest:It was just an explanation.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It was an explanation.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:And then I got my life back over time.
Guest:It damaged my family horribly, this whole experience, because my dad left that day.
Marc:Oh, so he felt responsible.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:And my mom hadn't been there.
Guest:And the reason my mom hadn't been there is because she thought no one would take us seriously.
Guest:Because there's a lot of internalized racism, my poor mother.
Guest:You know, you don't grow up in a colonial, in colonial Africa, you know, without thinking that you really are nothing.
Marc:Even if you're a princess?
Guest:Oh, well, because the colonialists disbanded all the royal lineages.
Guest:They stopped people from being able to even mention them.
Guest:You were no longer a queen.
Guest:You were no longer a princess.
Marc:They did the same things those Congolese rapists did, only mentally.
Guest:Yes, exactly, exactly.
Guest:That's the way it works.
Marc:It's a thorny, thorny... And also what this guy did to you on some level.
Guest:And you know what else, Mark?
Guest:What I've also realized more recently is, and I was reminded by it when I was watching the R. Kelly, the documentary about the girls, they kept repeatedly saying, we're black girls, no one's going to listen to us anyway.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And there was an element of that in this, in that no one was going to listen to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was the perfect victim.
Guest:Like, well, not only am I a little girl, I'm black.
Guest:Like, it's the kind of hyper-sexualized objectification of the black girl.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But also it's the, and I can do what I want to you, and no one's going to ever know about it because no one's going to listen to you anyway.
Yeah.
Guest:and how times have changed.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But this happened long before what's going on now.
Guest:Oh, yeah, but I talked about it a lot.
Marc:Early on.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Well, as soon as I went to therapy, I came out like, right, this cannot happen to another little girl.
Guest:Publicly.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And I could see it happening everywhere.
Guest:And it was also happening to me, not as badly, because as soon as I got a whiff of it, I'm like, fuck you.
Guest:I had casting couch bullshit, and I would call it out, and other actresses would...
Guest:Unfortunately, I was ostracized not only by the people preying on young women.
Guest:Because I was obviously not someone who was going to roll over.
Guest:But also people who just kind of like went along with things just because that's how you get ahead.
Guest:So don't rock the boat.
Guest:So they also wanted to sort of not be associated with me too.
Guest:I had a publicist, a very well-known publicist who...
Guest:who represented me at the time, who called me up one day and said, Tandi, you've got to stop talking about this stuff because it's just not good for your reputation.
Marc:Systemic.
Guest:Well, because it wasn't good for my reputation.
Guest:It really wasn't to be the one going, this industry is disgusting.
Guest:This is what happened.
Guest:This happened to me.
Guest:So look out, people.
Marc:But you were ahead of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And so do you feel that it did have a direct impact on what your career could have been?
Guest:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:I remember not wanting to do a movie because the director said to me, the first shot is going to be this tight close up.
Guest:It's going to look like a deep blue road, right?
Guest:With like the yellow stripes going down the road, you know, and we're going to pull back and realize that it's the denim of your jeans and the stitching so tight on your ass.
Guest:And it was a massive movie.
Guest:And I'm like, nope.
Guest:And literally that movie would have turned me into a major star.
Guest:I remember it.
Guest:I was like, I just can't.
Guest:I just can't work with that.
Guest:That's horrible.
Guest:And it was not with any kind of like pride.
Guest:It was just fear.
Guest:Like, I just can't.
Marc:And also, you know, the realization that you reclaimed yourself.
Marc:So why would you give that up?
Marc:I couldn't.
Guest:I literally couldn't.
Guest:It would be like vomiting again.
Marc:Right, right.
Guest:Couldn't do it.
Marc:Can't go back there.
Marc:Not worth living with that.
Guest:Well, because I knew that it was life or death.
Guest:Life or death.
Marc:Really?
Guest:Well, to be back in an environment.
Marc:To be back in the shame.
Guest:To be back in the shame.
Guest:Life or death.
Guest:Life or death.
Marc:And when did you turn a corner around being regrounded in your career, you know?
Guest:My career was always like, what would happen then, of course, is that I would find myself working with people who weren't like that.
Guest:So even though I may not have been earning as much as I could have been, I was working on kind of cool stuff, which didn't like make me rock it.
Guest:to that place which unfortunately and i felt terrible about that by the way that i said no to a project that would have my manager my agent were both shouting at me saying what movie what i can't say why can't well because i just didn't even say that anything bad about that guy really other than he wanted to shoot a picture but people people worked hard on it you know and and did it was it a big movie yeah
Guest:And, yeah, so I chipped away.
Guest:But I actually think that in the long run, it's better to just cruise along on good stuff than to have the highs because you can crash so far from those high places.
Marc:And also, you know, who the hell knows?
Marc:You could have become a monster.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Right?
Guest:Well, I could have become a stupid, self-absorbed...
Guest:An unempathic person.
Marc:It just seems like, you know, whatever the trajectory of your life has been that, you know, sort of you met the right man.
Marc:You got a beautiful family.
Marc:You work all the time.
Marc:You don't have the pressure of being some sort of strange, you know, movie star, which is not great.
Guest:No.
Guest:No.
Guest:I get to have a real life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I get to help people that I really, well, everybody's deserving of help.
Guest:And I get to do that with quite a few people.
Marc:And in a real, in an honest way, not as a way to.
Marc:Oh, no.
Guest:It's not like an accessory.
Marc:Or just sort of like I've got to do something to make it appear.
Marc:To make myself feel better.
Guest:Right.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It's none of that.
Guest:It saved my life.
Guest:It saved my life.
Marc:That's a beautiful thing.
Guest:And I've got these two daughters who are.
Guest:Dope!
Guest:They are so—they don't even realize it because it's just been this invisible nurturing and invisible information.
Guest:How old are they?
Guest:19 and 15.
Marc:So how did you deal with some of the conversations that you would have liked to have had with your family?
Guest:parents that didn't happen with them i had the conversations i talk about i talk about what happened they've seen me give talks they've seen they've not read interviews but i'm very open about it i'm not ashamed of what happened because it's not my shame on all levels you mean you have your childhood experience and the sexual oh yeah right absolutely and you do a talk
Guest:I did a TED talk, actually.
Guest:Not about sexual abuse, but about, I guess, being on the other side of racial hatred, I guess.
Guest:And my daughter, my 15-year-old, is an actress now.
Guest:I mean, so not what I kind of...
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It wasn't like I didn't create any opportunities for her quite the opposite.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it's happened to see her on set to see her in a photo shoot to see her be so gracious and yet have absolute self awareness.
Guest:Uh huh.
Guest:And, you know, it's not like she's afraid because mummy's like talked about these monsters that are out there because I've actually humanized the people that have done what they've done, you know, because nothing happens.
Guest:Because they are human?
Guest:Well, and also because trauma begets trauma begets trauma unless you interrupt that cycle, you know, and...
Guest:The girls, their eyes are wide open.
Guest:They're kind, but they question authority at every turn.
Guest:That's a big one for me, is to make sure that you have given permission for that authority to be in place.
Marc:And you provided them the ability to develop a sense of self.
Guest:Oh, utterly.
Marc:That's good.
Guest:Yeah, I'm proud.
Marc:You've broken the pattern.
Guest:Yeah, and I thank my mother for that, too, because she did the absolute best.
Guest:Oh, she did so great.
Guest:She did the best that she could.
Guest:And my dad, too.
Marc:But I think it's very interesting that kind of... Because even from what I understand about the character that you do now, even in Westworld, that you have a...
Marc:A robot who is realizing her situation and pushes back against her programming.
Guest:It's basically my story.
Guest:And your mother's story.
Guest:Babe, that first season was everything.
Guest:I had no idea.
Guest:that I was so well equipped to play that experience.
Guest:It was like the perfect metaphor for, I mean, look, it could be the perfect metaphor for a lot of people, not just women.
Guest:But to inhabit that, it's like it gave me complete closure.
Marc:It sealed off.
Marc:No kidding.
Marc:So the experience of immersing yourself in that.
Guest:Because it was a beginning, a middle, and an end.
Guest:She went from creating the trauma.
Guest:You know, she was the madam of the saloon, getting these girls to be raped and, you know, gross.
Guest:And then to have the awareness.
Guest:And then to...
Guest:educate herself in order to break free not just from the park but to free herself from her ideas about herself and others and morality and so on and then to say no and to then the second season is I would rather die which is that crash moment to the movie I would rather die I would rather die than have you dominate me in any way even to save my life
Marc:I guess the question in terms of talking about humanizing monsters is that moment where, because it can be viewed as him not changing at all and actually, again, being in a position of power, or as a policeman doing the duty of helping somebody in this particular situation even though he violated you in another situation.
Marc:It's a complicated bit of business.
Guest:It is.
Guest:And I think ultimately what the story is saying and is trying to portray is that even someone who does something awful can be redeemable if they truly understand the nature of what they've done, which is Eve's book, The Apology.
Guest:Right?
Marc:But that guy never really did.
Marc:No, he died.
Marc:Right.
Marc:She had to create that guy from her own heart.
Marc:That book is insane.
Marc:It's insane.
Guest:It is insane.
Guest:But you know what?
Guest:We can...
Guest:We can heal ourselves.
Guest:We don't have to hurt the person that's hurt us.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:And we don't have to continue the pattern.
Guest:No, we don't.
Guest:And that's really incredibly sophisticated, you know.
Guest:And so we have these brains.
Guest:We're not simple mammals, you know.
Marc:Yeah, we're not monkeys or dogs.
Guest:No, we can love them as we do.
Marc:Yes, but we can make choices.
Guest:We can, and so it's on us to go further with making things better.
Marc:Thank you for talking to me.
Guest:It's been amazing talking to you.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Yeah, I finished it.
Marc:Oh, good.
Marc:All right.
Marc:So now when I turn the mics off, you're going to tell me the name of the movie.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:But no, I'm so glad you came.
Guest:Thank you, Mark.
Guest:I'm glad I came too.
Thank you.
Marc:Tandy Newton, the lovely, charming, smart, engaged Tandy Newton.
Marc:The new season of Westworld is on HBO Sunday nights and on HBO streaming platforms.
Marc:My special, End Times Fun, is on Netflix globally streaming around the world.
Marc:Okay?
Marc:All right.
Marc:I will now play my dirty old guitar, my 1960 Les Paul Jr.
Marc:through a 1953 Fender Deluxe amp through a MXR Echoplex, which is a updated version of the original that doesn't use analog tape.
Marc:This is a meditation.
Marc:Almost... Spaceman 3 type meditation.
Marc:In two chords.
Thank you.
Marc:Boomer lives.