Episode 1192 - Kate Winslet
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck nicks what the fuck buddies what's happening i'm mark maron this is my podcast ongoing it's called wtf we've been doing it here a long time we've been in business since 2009 every monday and thursday huh
Marc:Never missed a Monday or Thursday.
Marc:We've done the show.
Marc:We've been here for you.
Marc:Planning on staying here for you.
Marc:Kate Winslet is on the show today.
Marc:You know who she is, obviously, Kate Winslet.
Marc:She's Kate Winslet.
Marc:She's in this amazing new movie currently called Ammonite.
Marc:It's an interesting, beautiful art movie, a darkly poetic love story.
Marc:I don't even know if I'd say it's dark.
Marc:It takes place in the 1800s.
Marc:It's about a British paleontologist who is sort of...
Marc:Not down on her luck, but she lives in a small southern coastal town with her mother.
Marc:She doesn't have a lot of money.
Marc:Male paleontologists steal her discoveries and call them their own.
Marc:And she was supposedly brilliant.
Marc:She's historically a real character, played by Kate Winslet.
Marc:Saoirse Ronan plays a woman who was married to a male paleontologist who was visiting and then leaves his wife there because she's ill and can't travel.
Marc:And it's what sort of unfolds in this strange little world.
Marc:I never understand why people make movies like this, but the unfolding of the love story and the unfolding of these two people who learn to be with each other in this
Marc:Very difficult situation because of who Kate Winslet's character is.
Marc:When I watched the movie, I was completely enthralled with the performances and also with the story because I don't know who decides to make movies like this.
Marc:You don't see movies like this much anymore.
Marc:This type of independent art film.
Marc:But it's truly a beautiful movie, and it's a challenging...
Marc:it's not a challenging love story.
Marc:It's a love story about a challenging love between these two people.
Marc:And I just, I couldn't believe how beautiful it was and how well acted it was.
Marc:So because I was so involved with that movie, Kate Winslet and I talk about it at length and it was very engaging.
Marc:I'm very happy I have the job I have talking to Kate Winslet.
Marc:I did some work with some tools, did some fixing around the house, got the drill out, got the screwdriver out, got the nails, got the hammer.
Marc:Shade was falling.
Marc:The trim on the window was detaching.
Marc:So I had to get up in there, had to find a nail, had to hammer the trim back in, then pull out the screw from the blind and re-screw it in another place because that was causing the problem.
Marc:So I had to unscrew and screw.
Marc:And I learned something about tools, not unlike guitar or anything else, is that, yeah, I can handle a tool.
Marc:I can handle a drill, a hammer, a screwdriver.
Marc:I can handle the thing that you putty holes with.
Marc:I can handle one of those.
Marc:A wrench, I'm okay with wrenches, sockets, socket wrenches, not a problem.
Marc:I could probably handle a crowbar if necessary.
Marc:I can handle a shovel, a pick, pick not so much.
Marc:Picks are tricky.
Marc:Shovels, I can rake, I can do a rake, but then I think we're just getting into yard work.
Marc:Talking to heavy tools, a sander, I can do a sander.
Marc:Not great with an axe.
Marc:I can play guitar, but I can't, an axe, I'm not confident with an axe.
Marc:My point is, is that I can do these things and I can focus enough in the moment to get the work at hand done.
Marc:But we expect ourselves to be able to do this stuff because we can handle a tool.
Marc:But unless you're handling tools all the time, unless you're working with tools on a consistent basis, it's going to be hit or miss.
Marc:All right?
Marc:I can do it.
Marc:I can focus.
Marc:I can get the job done.
Marc:But I'm not using tools all the time.
Marc:I'm not practiced at it.
Marc:I can't, like, drill behind my back.
Marc:Can't do any tricks with the drill or the hammer.
Marc:What's my point?
Marc:It's crooked.
Marc:It's crooked.
Marc:I put it up crooked and now it's going to be crooked because I handled the tools, but I didn't pay as much attention as I could because in the middle of it, there's a certain panic involved.
Marc:Like, fuck, fuck.
Marc:How come the screw?
Marc:How come this not going in far enough?
Marc:God damn.
Marc:You don't notice.
Marc:Hey, you're about a half inch off.
Marc:So this side of it is at a little bit of an angle that I'll notice for the rest of my life.
Marc:And then you just got to rationalize it.
Marc:Right.
Right.
Marc:I personalized my house.
Marc:I know it.
Marc:I did the work.
Marc:I'm proud of that.
Marc:I did it poorly.
Marc:But I did it.
Marc:And now I'll see it.
Marc:My poorly done work for the rest of my life for as long as I'm in this house.
Marc:But eventually, I'll stop noticing it.
Marc:Eventually, things fade.
Marc:People move on.
Marc:We'll be reminded, but we'll move on.
Marc:I was encouraged.
Marc:By an article in a weird way that I saw.
Marc:Because there's a lot of explaining going on.
Marc:We don't know.
Marc:I don't know if this country is going to be overrun by fascists eventually.
Marc:I'm very tired of people talking about like, hey, I don't want the political talk.
Marc:This isn't political talk.
Marc:This is the life or death of our form of government talk.
Marc:That's not political.
Marc:This is reality.
Marc:You know, if you're not invested enough to see the truth, which is that there is a kind of crudely organized but very big fascist movement in this country, American nationalists, fascists.
Marc:They call themselves patriots, yet they're fundamentally un-American because of their lack of respect for the Constitution that guides this country, that it's based on our democracy.
Right.
Marc:So they are a shameless fascist movement who believes and buys into a fundamental lie about the last election and also a mythology that is incorrect.
Marc:Two key ingredients of fascists.
Marc:How do you delude the angry people?
Marc:How do you trigger them into killing?
Marc:How do you get them to see everybody but like-minded people as others, as animals, as fodder, as things to be killed or gotten rid of?
Marc:How do you do that?
Marc:A lot of answers, a lot of explanations, a lot of speculation.
Marc:But the one thing I can tell you is that it's happening.
Marc:It's real.
Marc:And I'm fucking I got no patience for this conversation around, you know, Twitter shutting people out.
Marc:Good.
Marc:Good.
Marc:You want to talk about censorship and all that garbage and how it's a seed of totalitarianism and it's a free press, not the free press, but the private company, publicly traded private company, but it makes its own decisions.
Marc:And for a company, an information distribution company, a content distributor to make a decision around filtering content that is clearly supporting a fascist movement to overthrow the government of our country.
Marc:I don't know that that's censorship.
Marc:That seems pretty practical because everybody wants to survive.
Marc:People want the freedom to live the life they want to live.
Marc:And companies want the freedom to exploit those people in a way that doesn't cause the entire fucking thing to go up in flames.
Marc:I'm not saying it's not a challenging conversation, but it's not censorship in the way that the First Amendment plays into it.
Marc:Go out and talk all you want.
Marc:Find another outlet.
Marc:I'm sorry, sad Trump.
Marc:He can't just get on TV like an ordinary fucking president and use the bully pulpit there.
Marc:Why he has to because doesn't repeat enough.
Marc:He can't pound it and pound it and pound it on all levels into people's heads.
Marc:Fragile people who believe the bullshit, who get triggered by his narcissism.
Marc:He invented them.
Marc:He invented their minds.
Marc:They are extensions of him.
Marc:It's not political.
Marc:They may have been angry.
Marc:There have always been racist and white nationalists and fucking hateful whack jobs in this fucking country.
Marc:It was built by some, but he activates.
Marc:He's a radicalizer.
Marc:So when a private company or many of them who make their bucks through content distribution decide, well, this content is dangerous to everybody, that's a private company's decision.
Marc:in the middle of all this there's an interview in scientific american because you know everyone's looking for answers what we can do with these people well this is the only thing i've seen and i've i've said this before i'm not claiming to know anything but i believe that not unlike anything else anyone's passionate about eventually you lose interest if it's not in your face all the time it's not pounded into you all the time if your obsession isn't triggered constantly if you cut the head off the snake
Marc:But it's an interview in Scientific American with this thinking human named Bandy X Lee.
Marc:who is a forensic psychiatrist and president of the World Mental Health Coalition.
Marc:And the question presented them, what attracts people to Trump?
Marc:What is their animus or driving force?
Marc:And the answer this smart human gave was the reasons are multiple and varied.
Marc:But in my recent public service book, Profile of a Nation, I've outlined two major emotional drives, narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis.
Marc:Does that sound like a relationship you're in?
Marc:Narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader follower relationship magnetically attractive.
Marc:The leader hungry for adulation to compensate for an inner lack of self-worth projects grandiose omnipotence while the followers rendered needy by societal stress or developmental injury yearn for a parental figure.
Marc:When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a lock and key relationship.
Marc:Shared psychosis refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology.
Marc:When a highly symptomatic individual is placed in an influential position, the person's symptoms can spread through the population through emotional bonds, heightening existing pathologies and inducing delusions.
Marc:paranoia and propensity for violence, even in previously healthy individuals.
Marc:I'm quoting this interview with this person, Bandy X. Lee, forensic psychiatrist and president of the World Mental Health Coalition.
Marc:But here's the line.
Marc:Here's the line.
Marc:The treatment is removal of exposure.
Marc:That's the quote.
Marc:Okay, how do we stop fascism?
Marc:How do we stop a violent anti-American coalition being led by the president of the United States who has just been impeached for causing an insurrection?
Marc:The treatment is removal of exposure.
Marc:He's going to be out of office.
Marc:He's been banned from social media platforms, from propagandizing.
Marc:So maybe...
Marc:Over time, that removal of exposure will settle things down.
Marc:Or it's just going to be a bloody shit show for the rest of however long this fucking country survives.
Marc:And I hope they keep arresting these insurrectionists and these seditionists as examples of rule of law.
Marc:Anyway...
Marc:Kate Winslet is an amazing actress, and I had a very good time talking to her.
Marc:Her new film, Ammonite, is now available on digital platforms and Blu-ray and in selected theaters.
Marc:She's also starring in the upcoming HBO detective series, Mayor of Easttown.
Marc:That comes out in April.
Marc:And this is me talking to the amazing Kate Winslet.
Marc:Kate Winslet.
Guest:Hello.
Guest:Hi.
Marc:How are you?
Guest:Super good, actually.
Guest:I'm all right.
Guest:How are you doing?
Marc:Fine.
Guest:I'd love a cup of tea in half an hour.
Guest:God, the room service around here.
Guest:It's just so great.
Marc:What a nice husband.
Guest:He is a very good husband.
Guest:Actually, that would be disturbing.
Guest:Yeah, don't worry.
Guest:Did they say no?
Guest:No, no.
Guest:No, no, no, no.
Guest:Don't come in in half an hour because we will be recording.
Guest:It's okay.
Guest:okay all right no at the end would be great are you guys gonna fight or is this gonna no there's no way we're gonna fight we do sometimes but it's normally over like who fed the dog or you know the big stuff yeah
Guest:No, he did have quite a funny argument not very long ago, which was over something so stupid.
Guest:It was like who had finished the last of some kind of thing I'd made in the fridge.
Guest:Well, how far did that go?
Marc:How bad did that get?
Guest:Not very far.
Guest:It was just like one of those dumb lockdown grumps that made no sense.
Guest:Just like a complete waste of energy anyway.
Marc:I know.
Marc:I am.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Today's like I woke up in a lockdown frenzy, just aggravated you.
Guest:No, actually.
Guest:Well, actually, no, I was slightly agitated because I didn't sleep very well last night.
Marc:Why?
Marc:What do you think?
Marc:What's happening?
Guest:No, nothing.
Guest:I mean, no, no specific reason, although I did dream that I got vaccinated and that it didn't work.
Guest:Oh, so maybe I was woken up out of that.
Guest:Well, I dreamt that they had done that.
Guest:They had put the vaccination.
Guest:The needle had gone into my arm, but only half of the vial had gone in.
Guest:They'd taken the needle out and the liquid was spraying all over like me all over the floor.
Guest:And then no one seemed to know how to cope with it, what to do.
Guest:So they couldn't work out whether they should revaccinate me just half a vial, whether they should just discount that one and just do the whole thing all over again.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:It was very anxious making, just because nobody knew what the protocol was.
Guest:And that I found really scary.
Marc:Well, that's a global problem.
Guest:Well, precisely.
Guest:I mean, I was dreaming about the world, clearly.
Guest:There's no protocol.
Marc:What is the protocol there?
Marc:Are you getting that?
Marc:How's it working?
Guest:So at the moment, they are as quickly as they can vaccinating over 90s and over 80s.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And key workers and health care workers.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So my father has had his vaccination.
Guest:He's 81.
Guest:So that's a huge, feels like a huge relief.
Guest:He's had his first dose.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:So that's it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, I don't know when everybody, you know, we'll just, we just all wait our turn, I think.
Marc:Well, I think that's like, I think that's causing me the most anxiety is knowing it's out there and that they can't seem to figure out a way to get it to everybody, you know, efficiently and quickly.
Marc:And we have to wait for months, you know, just living in the same system, knowing that we could get some, you know, relief.
Marc:It's driving me nuts.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I think Canada seemed to have...
Guest:They seem to be ready to get everyone vaccinated, you know, come summer.
Marc:Believe me, I'm ready to move, but I can't even run away now.
Marc:We're not even allowed to run away anymore.
Guest:I know.
Guest:It's like Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern.
Guest:Like, where do we go?
Guest:It's crazy, man.
Guest:I know.
Marc:Where are you?
Marc:You're in the UK?
Guest:I'm in the UK.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:South coast.
Guest:We live on the south coast of England.
Guest:So we are really lucky that we are.
Guest:We're near the ocean.
Guest:We have some nice outdoor space.
Guest:And yeah, we're good.
Guest:We're all right.
Marc:How many kids are with you?
Marc:How many do you have there?
Guest:I have three.
Marc:And they're all at home?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Are they going nuts?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, no, they're not good.
Guest:They're not actually, they're not too bad.
Guest:I mean, my daughter is 20.
Guest:So she's actually enormously, she's enormously helpful around the house.
Guest:And then I have a 17 year old son just turned 17.
Guest:So he's all excited because in England, you can't start to learn how to drive until you're 17.
Guest:So that's now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So that, although he won't be able to have an instructor, it'll just be him and my husband on quiet roads.
Guest:Driving around.
Guest:Driving around.
Guest:And then there's the seven year old who just thinks that it's so great that everyone's just around all the time.
Guest:I mean, he just got all these people to do.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All these people to do drumming and Lego with him.
Guest:I mean, he couldn't be more.
Guest:He couldn't be more thrilled.
Marc:Wait, you were in a pandemic movie.
Marc:I sure was.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Doesn't end well for you.
Guest:No, it doesn't end well for me at all.
Guest:But I did have quite a lot.
Guest:I did have quite a lot of fun doing Contagion and particularly that moment because I get slung into a ditch in a body bag, which of course I had to hold my breath because it's like a plastic body bag.
Guest:You can see me through and I couldn't help, but you know, almost every take I'd open one eye and just say,
Guest:does my bum look big in this?
Guest:Or I'd say, do I look thin?
Guest:Just stupid, typically vain nonsense crap.
Guest:Yeah, but I was in contagion, which I have to be completely honest with you.
Guest:When COVID really hit, I was wearing a mask
Guest:I was in Philadelphia when we went into lockdown.
Guest:I was doing a show for HBO and people were staring at me funny because right away I was like, it's coming people.
Guest:I was walking down the street and in the grocery store with my mask on and people were 1000% looking at me like I was quite strange.
Marc:It's so weird that the aversion and the weird resistance to it.
Marc:I mean, people in Asia have been wearing them since SARS.
Marc:I mean, you know, I used to see people on the plane, Asian people mostly, wearing masks, thinking like, what's up with that?
Marc:And now it's like, well, now everybody's got to do it.
Marc:I don't have a problem with it.
Guest:Well, I don't either.
Guest:The only problem I have with it is that I just feel really sad that for a whole generation, you know, my seven-year-old's generation and even younger...
Guest:You know, those children are going to grow up remembering wearing masks to nursery school or kindergarten, you know, into shops.
Guest:I mean, that's what makes me sad.
Guest:Not touching door handles.
Marc:Right.
Guest:But they're also not hugging their friends, you know.
Marc:Losing a year or however long this is going to take.
Marc:I don't have children, so I imagine it must be very difficult to know that these formative years, whatever part of their life they're in, are going to be sort of, you know, lost.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And I think particularly for...
Guest:young people in their early 20s.
Guest:I think for those individuals who have been hearing their parents say for years, these are the best years of your life, going off to colleges and really exploring their true selves.
Guest:And suddenly, they're back at home with mom and dad.
Guest:It is sad.
Guest:It's very sad.
Guest:And I think it's going to be hard confidence-wise for
Guest:for those young people.
Guest:And, uh, that's a worry.
Guest:Very, very hard, but it will continue to, I think in coming out the other side and regaining confidence and, you know, connecting with their true selves again, I think that will take time.
Guest:I'm sure.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I find that I'm just, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm for, I'm 57.
Marc:And I think that this isolation business has really helped me in connecting with my true self.
Marc:It's not great.
Marc:Uh,
Guest:I don't like connecting with the side of myself that has become obsessed with sweeping the kitchen floor.
Guest:Like, what is that about?
Marc:It's about having a little bit of control, Kate, in a world that's out of control.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:That's very true.
Guest:That's very true.
Guest:Yeah, but I like the fact that, you know, it's just me that does it because I'm the one that can do it the fastest.
Marc:And probably the best, right?
Marc:You're the best at it?
Guest:I don't know, actually.
Guest:My 17-year-old is a pretty good floor sweeper.
Guest:I've got to be honest.
Guest:Competition.
Guest:Competition going on.
Marc:At least you're having a good time.
Marc:I just realized when I was looking at stuff about you that you're doing this arc with Cameron.
Marc:You're in this Avatar movie, right?
Marc:This new one?
Guest:Yes.
Marc:You're back with that guy.
Marc:You know, at this point, the reason I bring it up is because he had me come down there to audition for something, to look at me for something.
Marc:I had to go down there to that city he built, the Avatar City.
Guest:Manhattan Beach, yeah.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it was the weirdest thing.
Marc:It's like, you know, I walk in and he's like, well, we've got actors working here all the time just, you know, flying around and stuff.
Marc:So if you want to just...
Marc:come into a set and we'll just do it.
Marc:I was like, what the fuck is happening here?
Marc:So like, have you been, what do you, have you spent time down there?
Marc:And is he making like what, 20 movies at once?
Marc:What's happening?
Guest:To be honest, I slightly lost track of how many he is making at once.
Guest:I did two at once in tandem with him.
Guest:And all of my work was actually in 2018, but they're still shooting it.
Guest:They're shooting the live action portion of it now.
Guest:And obviously they were held up because of COVID, et cetera.
Guest:But it was just, you know, yeah, you're right.
Guest:It's an extraordinary experience.
Guest:You know, you sort of go into this, what feels like a huge souped up aircraft hangar where anything is possible.
Guest:You want to fly today?
Guest:You want to, you know, you want to get on an ELU?
Guest:You want to do some spear fighting underwater?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Yeah, we'll do that.
Guest:You know, it's like...
Guest:But it was I mean, it was wonderful for me just to be part of something that such a well-oiled machine with great people, you know, incredible technicians and artists and to be part of such a fantastic story.
Marc:Were you doing a lot of underwater work?
Guest:Yeah, so most of my work was underwater.
Guest:Yeah, not just on the water or in it, but under it.
Guest:And I loved all of that.
Guest:I worked with some extraordinary performers who are Cirque du Soleil water performers who did a lot of the doubling work underwater.
Guest:So to be honest, I spent a lot more time with those people actually than some of the actors.
Guest:And it was just incredible.
Guest:I mean, just the training and the whole process.
Marc:And he's got that like he's got like a little museum set up where he's got the Titanic down there.
Guest:Yeah, he has.
Guest:Which I didn't get to go into my husband and my children were like, oh, wow, mom, we saw your dress from the blah, blah, blah.
Guest:I'm like, that still exists.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:I was convinced I trashed that.
Marc:Yeah, he's got the boat and everything.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:There's a whole visual archive down there, which is apparently quite spectacular.
Marc:What was it like just hooking up with that guy again, though?
Marc:I mean, that's like, how many years is that?
Marc:I mean, the intensity of whatever you guys went through when you were a kid, it must be either post-traumatic or exciting or at the very least emotional.
Yeah.
Guest:It was really, you know, it was amazing to be, it was amazing to be collaborating with Jim again, because, you know, we're both older, so much time has gone by.
Guest:But also with Avatar, he's got a lot more time to make that piece than he ever had with Titanic.
Guest:Yeah, clearly.
Guest:Still filming two and a half years later.
Guest:Yeah, years later.
Guest:And so I think...
Guest:And I think there's just a process that he's entered into a rhythm that is just, you know, it's just really quite relaxed.
Guest:And also because he's so intricately connected with that entire world because he created it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But there's a sort of a confidence in him.
Guest:that sort of breeds collaboration and conversation.
Guest:And it was great.
Guest:It was a really, you know, I'd walk, I remember walking into the room on the sort of first day of rehearsal and lots of actors were there all sat around the table.
Guest:And I was quite nervous because I thought, well, most of them had been in the first one, you know, 10 years ago and all known each other forever.
Guest:So I walk into the room and Jim said, I just need to warn you before we go any further.
Guest:We've all drunk the Kool-Aid.
Guest:So you will be speaking Nut V, you know, within the next half an hour.
Guest:And, uh,
Guest:And I thought, I wonder, what does he quite sort of mean by that?
Guest:But, you know, there's a proper immersive experience to be had there.
Guest:And it was quite fascinating.
Guest:And I loved being part of it.
Guest:It was, you know, really very special time.
Marc:Did you know, like, has he changed a lot?
Marc:I mean, I don't know what the process was with Titanic.
Marc:And I know you were so much younger, but like he struck me when I met with him.
Marc:It was almost surreal because like I couldn't believe I was meeting with him.
Marc:But he seems very intense, but very accessible.
Marc:But like, did you find like did you guys fall into a groove or has he changed, you know?
Guest:Yeah, he's definitely changed.
Guest:But I think what you just said is really interesting, like very intense, but accessible.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:You know, he's like a, he's like a scientist.
Guest:Jim is a, you know, I, I, I've always said if ever there was a global crisis, there is one person I'd want to be with and that's Jim Cameron.
Guest:And that remains the case.
Guest:Where is he now?
Guest:But that remains the case.
Marc:Just to make you feel better or do you think he's got some magic?
Guest:He has some magic or he always knows what to do.
Guest:But what I will say, what I will definitely say is that and this was a true change that I saw in him that made me laugh and made him laugh as well.
Guest:He would never admit when he'd gotten something wrong, and that's completely changed.
Guest:So on Avatar, we were doing this water work, and they were trying to build quite a complicated sort of bridge floating, lowering floating bridge structure for the camera.
Guest:And Jim was like, no, it needs to be like this.
Guest:Trust me, I've done this a thousand times before.
Guest:Do this, do this, do this, do this.
Guest:And then it 100% didn't work.
Guest:And he very quickly was like, okay, well, that blows.
Guest:My bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Re-digged it and moved on.
Guest:But that was definitely a new character trait.
Guest:I was like, I'll get you admitting that you had an idea that didn't work.
Guest:Yeah, it was really cool.
Guest:It was really cool.
Marc:Well, you would think, you know, you work on something for like 10 years that you would be humbled by attempts that didn't quite pan out.
Marc:But like, how old were you when you did Titanic?
Guest:I turned 21 on that shoot and Leo turned 22 and I'm now 45 and he's 46.
Marc:I interviewed him with you with Brad Pitt.
Marc:It was the two of them.
Marc:It was crazy.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:And they had just come out of some other event and they were all electric, you know, so two major movie stars being electric.
Marc:And I'm just sitting there trying to get my tape, my recorder to work.
Marc:But he.
Marc:Leo really brought up he said that he knew the exact day and time that that his life changed, you know, because of Titanic.
Marc:Like he said, wow, like he remembered the day he walked out of his house to go to the store and there was a satellite truck there.
Marc:You know, ready to film.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But you seem like that was a moment for you where you just bailed on it.
Marc:But you knew that could happen.
Guest:Well, I think I mean, when you say bailed on it, it's really funny.
Guest:I think I went into self-protective mode right away because the similar thing happened to me, although it wasn't a satellite truck.
Guest:It was just, you know, cars and cars full of, you know, British tabloid photographers who were photographing me.
Guest:you know going and buying a pint of milk and a newspaper right um and that was just weird i mean it was it was it was like night and day from you know one day to the next um and and also i was subjected to quite a lot of um of sort of personal physical scrutiny and i was criticized quite a lot the british press were actually quite unkind to me um and i felt i felt quite bullied if i'm honest yeah and i remember just thinking okay well
Guest:this is horrible and I hope it passes.
Guest:And it did definitely pass, but it also made me realize that if that was what being famous was, I was not ready to be famous, thank you.
Guest:No, definitely not.
Guest:And also the other thing too was that because I was so young,
Guest:you know, it's all very well being in a huge, great film and being Oscar nominated and so blessed and all of those things that I was saying and saying and saying over and over again.
Guest:But I was still learning how to act.
Guest:I'd only been doing it since I was 17.
Guest:And so I still felt like I wasn't really ready to do lots of big Hollywood jobs.
Guest:It was a huge responsibility.
Guest:You know, I didn't want to
Guest:I didn't want to make mistakes.
Guest:I didn't want to blow it.
Guest:I wanted to be in it for the long game, you know?
Guest:So I did strategically try and find smaller things just so I could understand the craft a bit better and also understand myself a bit better and maintain some degree of privacy and dignity and all those things that were totally, yeah, exactly.
Guest:And then I had my daughter when I was 25 and sort of
Guest:All of that sort of stuff kind of evaporated a bit in terms of feeling watched and whether I cared about it.
Guest:I just that just kind of went away.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You think they were like, well, my focus was my child, you know, and that was all that mattered.
Marc:Oh, I thought you were saying that they weren't interested in you.
Marc:She's got a kid now.
Marc:Let's move on.
Guest:Well, yeah, they were definitely they were definitely less interested in me at that point.
Guest:That's for sure.
Marc:And that's the 20 year old.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:She's 20 now.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But like so like at that point, you say you've only you were only acting a few years.
Marc:But I mean, it seems that you were surrounded by actors all the time that you grew up in a world of actors.
Guest:Well, I did and I didn't.
Guest:You know, it's really interesting with British actors, you know, because because well, in my case, you know, because I speak well, people often think there's a sort of a huge pedigree and training that comes underneath me.
Guest:And actually, you know, I was from a fairly working class background and grew up in a crowded terraced house on a busy main road.
Guest:in Reading, Berkshire, where I'm where I'm from.
Guest:And my dad was an actor.
Guest:But believe me, he was also he was also a Christmas tree seller.
Guest:He was a postman.
Guest:He was a he worked for a tarmac firm.
Guest:You know, he he drove a van for a small company.
Marc:So he was a frustrated actor.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:Very, very much so.
Marc:My question is like, you know, like it's like people who I'm just using this as a comparison, like if you grow up in a house where somebody smokes and, you know, either you become a smoker or you end up hating smoking.
Marc:So like, you know, seeing the struggles, you know, your father was going through as an actor.
Guest:Well, I just said, well, I just imagined that I would have I would struggle as well.
Guest:So I would I actively remember thinking to myself, I
Guest:Okay, I've got to get a decent, a well-paid part-time job with a nice boss who lets me take time off if I have to go on auditions.
Guest:I really remember thinking that.
Marc:How old were you?
Guest:But I never anticipated, about 14.
Marc:So you knew you wanted to do it.
Marc:Like your father was, did your mother act as well?
Guest:No, my mother was not an actress.
Guest:No, but funnily enough.
Marc:She was the woman who put up with actors?
Guest:She was the woman who tolerated it all.
Guest:My poor, poor mom.
Yeah.
Guest:but her but her parents this is very odd because she really was quite shy my mother yeah um and never would have wanted to act but her parents were actually both actors which is which is strange and she had she had four brothers and a sister and and a couple of her brothers were actors as well and my father was a friend with one of her brothers which is why they then met um
Marc:It's sort of interesting.
Marc:It's kind of like that weird kind of, you know, you get in relationships with things that are comfortable from your childhood.
Marc:She was sort of stuck in an actor loop.
Marc:I know.
Guest:It's funny.
Guest:I mean, there must be something in the genes.
Guest:I don't know, because...
Guest:You know, my older sister, my older sister, my younger sister, she has five children.
Guest:I'm my younger sister, but she is also an actress when she's not being a parent.
Guest:It's just sort of everywhere, really.
Guest:My daughter is now an actress.
Guest:I mean, it's kind of just mad.
Marc:It is crazy.
Marc:It is crazy.
Marc:I mean, how come you haven't all worked together?
Marc:Have you?
Marc:Like you and your sisters?
Guest:No.
Guest:No, no, we haven't.
Guest:I think I'm probably going to work with my daughter in about a year's time.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:There's something that's come up.
Guest:Yeah, she's good.
Marc:Is she going to play your daughter?
Marc:She's good.
Marc:Is she good?
Marc:She might.
Marc:She might.
Marc:She's really good.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:She's really, really good.
Guest:She's a lot better than I was at her age.
Guest:Bloody hell.
Guest:I mean, obviously, you know, she's really...
Guest:She's quite grounded and very sort of just, I don't know, she's very unafraid.
Guest:I feel I was much more afraid and tentative when I was her age.
Marc:Well, it seems like you must have been self-conscious if you knew enough to know that when you found the success, it would have launched you into blockbuster movies forever.
Marc:You decided that you weren't quite good enough.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, I decided I didn't know enough.
Guest:I just I just knew that I didn't know enough.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:You know, I still still had lots to learn, you know.
Guest:But I think because I haven't been trained, you know, I left school when I was 16 and I got lucky.
Guest:So I had a slight insecurity that people also because of that British thing and speaking very well, people assumed I had this training, this sort of, you know, underpinning of, you know, wealth of knowledge.
Guest:And I didn't at all.
Guest:When were the first roles?
Guest:I did a television job when I was 16 years old at a sitcom.
Guest:And then I was cast in Peter Jackson's film, Heavenly Creatures, when I was 17.
Guest:And that was the first film I ever did.
Guest:Yeah, that was the first film I ever did.
Guest:And then I did Sense and Sensibility when I was 19.
Marc:I love Melanie.
Marc:Do you talk to Melanie still?
Guest:I haven't spoken to her for a while, but we've loosely kept in touch over the years.
Marc:I did a show with her.
Marc:I did a scene with her in a show.
Guest:Oh, did you?
Guest:She's so great.
Guest:Yes, she is.
Guest:She's a wonderful actress.
Guest:God, she's so good.
Guest:She's so good.
Marc:Were you guys in that movie?
Marc:That movie was like, you know, it was one of the, like, I feel traumatized watching that movie.
Marc:Like, I remember the movie as being, having a profound emotional effect on me.
Yeah.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:It had a hugely emotional effect on me.
Guest:I was 17 years old and as a first experience, as a first one out of the gate, just experience of playing a part in a film because of the nature of the story and playing those two real life characters.
Guest:It had to be incredibly immersive.
Guest:So it taught me so much about just the process of acting and building a character and preparation and focus.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, all of those things, which, you know, which really stood me in in quite good stead in terms of, you know, a short, sharp injection of sort of education.
Marc:And how was Peter as a as a director?
Marc:Did he?
Guest:Oh, he was amazing.
Guest:He was just it was like it was like.
Guest:you know it was like working every day with your you know your big brother or your dad or i mean he was he was very um he was very connected to me and and and melanie as a friend and just really really looked after us the whole experience was was very powerful and and emotional and um
Guest:And it was a small, independent film made in New Zealand.
Guest:We filmed in most of the real locations that things have actually taken place.
Guest:It's a real murder story.
Guest:you know, we, we, we filmed in, in, in those places and that, you know, that has a, that has a, that has an effect on, on you as a young person, you know, very special experience.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And as somebody who's immersed in the emotions of the actual story to go to where all that stuff is, has got to be some weird ritual.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So if you weren't trained, like I,
Marc:Where did you pick it up?
Marc:Like you weren't like, did you see your dad work?
Marc:Did you go see your dad in shows?
Marc:Did you spend time at the theater as a kid?
Guest:I did.
Guest:I spent time at the theater.
Guest:Yes, I did.
Guest:I was in a sort of a, you know, kind of a kid's drama company, theater company.
Marc:So you had some stage chops.
Guest:I mean, you knew the deal.
Guest:I'd experienced the feeling of standing on a stage in front of a big audience.
Guest:being completely terrified but feeling a huge buzz you know I definitely had done that but but when I became an actress I never imagined I would you know be on be in films or even on television I just assumed that I would have a sort of a struggling hopefully interesting life in the theater yeah so the fact that suddenly I was doing films was totally mad so where'd you pick up the did you just learn on the job then I mean was that the process because I tried yes
Marc:Really?
Guest:I learned on the job.
Marc:Even talking about heavenly creatures where you're making choices and figuring out how to get these tools.
Marc:Who gave you those?
Marc:Who told you this is how you do those?
Guest:Well, I mean, I, you know, I honestly, I watched and I learned and I made mistakes and learned from them, you know.
Guest:But also I had, you know, I had some fortunate moments with great actors early on.
Guest:You know, I did Sense and Sensibility when I was 19 years old, working with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman.
Guest:And just learning how to, you know, how to sort of conduct yourself on a film set and how to be with other people and behaving in a respectful, you know, collaborative way, you know, which I was already instinctively doing.
Guest:But seeing it from actors who were much more experienced and wiser and older than myself, that was one of the greatest things of all.
Guest:Because it was that that really set me up for Titanic.
Guest:When I did Titanic, I didn't have any delusions of grandeur.
Guest:I was going to work.
Guest:I was playing a part.
Guest:And people would say to me, oh my God, it's such a big film.
Guest:And I'd think, oh God, don't say that.
Guest:It doesn't make any difference whether it's big or small.
Guest:It's the same.
Guest:The work is the same.
Guest:And I had already learned that work ethic thing.
Guest:By watching other actors and other actors from Emma and Alan.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, but they're like, it strikes me that Emma's classically trained, right?
Marc:Probably.
Marc:Yeah, she is.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:So like, you know, that I mean, that's a whole different approach.
Marc:You're basically like saying, you know, and I'm not this isn't in a judgmental way, only because like I've been trying I've been doing some acting.
Marc:Is that, you know, you come to it that your emotional availability as an actress is something that you engage sort of naturally.
Marc:You don't like so to actually learn the professionalism of it or to because like Emma is a great actress, but she's going to approach it differently than you, I would imagine, you know, in terms of putting together.
Guest:I mean, everyone, you know, everyone has a totally different approach and a completely different approach.
Guest:process you know um and also that changes all the time even changes for me all the time depending on you know depending on the the nature of of the role i suppose but yeah but i've definitely definitely learned on the job and still do i still do honestly there are still things that fascinate me well i mean i watched the the new movie uh ammonite is that how you say it ammonite yeah ammonite yeah
Marc:And like it's like it's a very kind of powerful, poetic, sparse movie, you know, but it's so like, you know, intense and it's great.
Marc:You're great in it.
Marc:Saoirse is great in it.
Marc:The movies.
Marc:It's one of those movies where I watch.
Marc:I'm like, who would think to tell this story?
Marc:You know, like where does this come from?
Marc:But it's actually based on a real person, huh?
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:So it is based on real people and a real person.
Guest:Mary Anning, who I play, she was a very significant female paleontologist of her time.
Guest:Our film is set in 1840 on the Jurassic coast of England, the south coast of England.
Marc:Is that where you shot it?
Marc:So near where you are now?
Guest:It's about two hours from where I live.
Guest:And the coastline there is largely unchanged.
Guest:It recedes every year.
Guest:It's sort of quite a chalky lime cliff face.
Guest:And they regularly have cliff falls there.
Guest:Mary Anning was a formidable woman in a world of science and geology that was dominated by men.
Guest:These men would buy her finds and reappropriate them as their own discoveries, actually put their name on her work.
Guest:She lived a life of extreme poverty and struggle, but she was brilliant at what she did.
Guest:She found her first ichthyosaur when she was only 11 years old.
Guest:She and her brother, it took them over a year to dig it out.
Guest:And she was responsible for some very significant pioneering discoveries.
Guest:But because she was a woman, no one ever knew anything about her.
Guest:And even today, if you Google Mary Anning or you try and find a book about Mary Anning,
Guest:You know, you will be able to find things about her finds, about her work that have been subsequently written over the years.
Guest:But there's very little known about her personal and private life.
Guest:There's a lot known about her childhood because of how she lived in this extremely impoverished way with her mother and her father, who died when she was only 10.
Guest:Her father had taught her everything she knew about fossil finding.
Guest:And she had quite a close connection with him.
Guest:She had several siblings die.
Guest:When I say several, like six, six siblings died.
Guest:And two, even before she was born, you know, smallpox, you know, sort of poverty illnesses.
Marc:And so the love story between you and Saoirse's character.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Is invented.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So there's really nothing known.
Marc:Do people know if she was.
Guest:No, there's nothing.
Guest:There is nothing historically documented at all.
Guest:about Mary Anning's personal intimate relationships with women or men.
Guest:There was nothing documented.
Guest:And Francis Lee, the writer and director of the film,
Guest:he came to feel that in telling this story, he wanted to give Mary a relationship, a partner who felt worthy of her because she was such an extraordinary, quiet, but formidable woman.
Guest:And because she existed in a world that was dominated by men,
Guest:He didn't feel that it would have been right to pair her with a man because that was the thing that she was sort of struggling against in many ways, living in this very patriarchal society, patriarchal world.
Guest:And so it felt right to pair her with a woman.
Guest:And what I really love about the story and about the
Guest:the film.
Guest:I've only seen it once.
Guest:But what I really appreciate about it is the connection between these two women that comes out of work, you know, at a time when we so often see on film, you know, women in marriages to men who are wealthier than them or they're married off because they need financial security or to have children, to literally bear children, to become a parent.
Guest:But actually exploring this different experience
Guest:This different type of woman telling this different story about someone who worked and worked and worked for every single thing that she had and the connection these women form through the work and their mutual fascination and love for it.
Guest:That to me was something really quite unusual and wonderful and that they they fall in love as a result of their connection over.
Guest:Over Ammonites, over the world of fossils and geology.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I mean, the way you describe it, you know, is different than like my experience seeing it, because my experience was that that Saoirse's the character's husband was in the same profession as you.
Marc:And she was sort of lost and repressed and, you know, kind of.
Marc:Didn't quite know who she was and sickly.
Marc:And you get stuck with her and you, you know, are there's something about the characters, your characters relationships with rocks and with this process of unearthing these dinosaur pieces and her sort of.
Marc:Her hardness.
Marc:I mean, it's a very hard character, but it becomes such an emotionally deep that when when the relationship finally consummates into something that is you're able to release some emotions.
Marc:It's incredibly, you know, moving because it's such a quiet movie.
Marc:And I don't even like your performance.
Marc:I mean, you don't talk that much.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, I know.
Marc:I know.
Marc:And all the framing of what you're saying about this woman's role in the world, it's really obscured by the fact that she's living in this like gray life where she just goes out and hammers rocks out there to find things.
Marc:Like, you know, I can see how it all fits together in the museum and stuff, but her actual day to day life seemed something, you know, akin to like, you know, there was some God, the longing of the whole thing was really too much.
Marc:So how do you like talking about work?
Marc:I mean, how do you look at that story?
Marc:I mean, I see how you just explained to me the story and how you read it.
Marc:But I mean, do you rely completely on what's written to kind of find your way emotionally in that thing?
Guest:Well, you know, Mary Anning, when we see her in the film, she's in her early 40s.
Guest:She actually died at the age of 47 eventually, Mary Anning, sadly, of breast cancer.
Guest:But, you know, we meet her at a time in the story where she is tired.
Guest:She's living alone with her mother.
Guest:in quite an isolated private world.
Guest:You know, she was never socially very confident or comfortable anyway, largely because people just thought she was this mysterious woman who dug up sea monsters.
Guest:You know, there was an air of sort of, well, is she a witch or what, you know, what is she?
Guest:So she had sort of retreated from society and hidden herself away.
Guest:And as you point out, Charlotte Murchison, played by Saoirse Ronan,
Guest:is brought to Mary because she's very unwell and therefore considered not strong enough for the rigors of an overseas journey that her husband, who's also a scientist, is about to make.
Guest:So yeah, as you say, he dumps her and leaves her behind for Mary to mentor, care for.
Guest:And
Guest:Mary really only accepts this position because she needs the money.
Marc:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Which is so tragic, really, and sad that Mary was so desperate for money.
Guest:But then Charlotte becomes very ill, and it's through nursing Charlotte back to health, almost like she was her own child, that Mary...
Guest:realizes that she does feel for this woman.
Guest:She feels this woman's sadness.
Guest:There's something that's happened in her life that has made her quite closed off and lonely.
Guest:And so they connect in this strange sort of fractured, lonely world that they've both been living in.
Guest:And then, as you say, you know,
Guest:Mary, there isn't a lot of talking.
Guest:Mary doesn't speak very much in the film.
Guest:And it's really interesting when people point this out to me, because, of course, for me, there's a lot going on in her head and her mind all the time.
Guest:There was a lot of story to be told.
Guest:And the script was very visual, very detailed in its description of
Guest:You know, just the space, the atmosphere in the room, the sounds of the birds, the crackle of the fire, the crashing of the waves.
Guest:It was a very, very detailed, textured script when I first read it.
Guest:And I absolutely loved it for those reasons.
Guest:But yes, you're right.
Guest:The longing and the very gradual connection between these two women that grows through the affection they have for one another.
Guest:and the work that they're doing together out on those beaches and Mary teaching Charlotte what she can and what she knows.
Guest:And, you know, it's a story about self-discovery because who we choose to love can end up defining who we are.
Guest:And at the end of the film, Mary and Charlotte as individual women are quite different to the women that you meet at the beginning of the story.
Guest:And I love that about it.
Guest:I really appreciate that about the film.
Marc:I didn't know what to expect, and I hadn't seen a movie like that in a long time.
Marc:I don't feel like they make movies like that much anymore.
Marc:And there's a poetry to it, and there's sort of a visual sensibility that's obviously very articulated and thought through.
Marc:And also, once you guys consummate your love and the sexual scenes,
Marc:you know, are graphic and profound, but earned and not gratuitous in any way.
Marc:But, you know, but, you know, very respectful and very raw, you know, that to see both of those women explode in that type of energy and then kind of regroup, it's pretty, that must've been insane to shoot.
Marc:I mean, I've been on sets where, you know, they're closed sets, but it must've been sort of like, all right, everybody out.
Guest:Well, I mean, there's, you know, I think what was,
Guest:wonderful for Saoirse and I about the two people playing the actresses playing these parts was that we were able to access in our preparation
Guest:letters, real love letters that were written between women, women who were actually in marriages to men, but were quietly connecting in a sort of a sisterhood way that's built over into intense friendship that then would become very intense, intimate sexual relationships that would last a lifetime.
Guest:And so we wanted to in very, very detailed information in these letters that we that we were able to access.
Marc:You have that that other relationship with the woman in town that seems loaded and that might like it's not quite explained, but it's understood.
Guest:Yeah, it's very clear that Mary Anning had a previous connection with Elizabeth Philpott, who was also a real character in history, by the way, who lives locally in the town.
Guest:So but.
Guest:You know, one thing that Saoirse and I really did feel and talking about the film now, you know, I've learned, I've just learned so much about what happens when you remove the heterosexual stereotypes from the film, you know, and how in films so often we objectify women in a very automatic way, almost like we're breathing without even thinking about it.
Guest:And because we didn't have the objectification of,
Guest:of women in any way in our film.
Guest:It was utterly equal and connected because of the love these two people share for each other.
Guest:For me, it was almost like a breath of fresh air.
Guest:There was no leader.
Guest:So often you read a heterosexual love scene on paper in a script and the man is often the one who's wooing and leading and the woman is flirting or wanting to be taken in some way.
Guest:You know, these things are very automatically written.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Or very often when reading a heterosexual love scene on paper, it will say something like the woman's on top dominating now.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Why can't she just know what she wants?
Guest:Why does she have to be dominating?
Guest:And then we get this sort of generalized description of the woman as a whole in a way that we would never get that same description of the male counterpart.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And we didn't have any of that in Ammonite.
Guest:And that for me was new.
Guest:It was really new.
Guest:And I just it was like a. That's interesting.
Guest:It was very interesting.
Guest:And it was a relief to be part of something that was, you know, utterly equal and connected and safe because of those things.
Marc:Right.
Marc:And because like you don't really it's almost a surprise to everyone when it kind of happens, when it finally consummates.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And also, there's so many layers of clothing involved.
Marc:It's hard to objectify.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:They did wear a lot of clothes in those days.
Guest:So therefore, there were a lot of things that needed to come off.
Guest:That is correct.
Guest:Well observed.
Marc:But no, but I mean, when it does happen, I don't know that I would have thought about it like that because I'm not thinking about it coming from the angle.
Marc:But especially given your history with the pushback against the type of objectification, I think that like it seems that early on you realize that you didn't want to have anything to really do with that kind of the way that show business or movies puts people or women in that position.
Guest:Well, I think I certainly, what's really interesting to me, I look back on my 20s and things that people would say about me when I was still trying to figure out who the hell I was.
Guest:Like what?
Guest:well you know curvy kate you know people would talk about me as being different because i was you know slightly bigger than average meanwhile i was like a i don't know a size six or what i have no idea but but that stuff was so shocking to me because i would then push back and say well this is just who i am well then i was labeled as being ballsy then i was labeled as being you know strong headstrong no i'm just telling you that
Guest:That I like carbs.
Guest:What's wrong with that?
Guest:You know, but that's changed now, Mark, you know, that's one area I would say that I think we are doing globally a little better is that we are celebrating real women much more, you know, back in those days in the 90s, you know.
Guest:Hollywood was completely riddled with very, very slender women who were in a way that was perhaps not entirely balanced or perhaps quite right.
Guest:And I think that's gone a bit now.
Marc:I think that's true.
Guest:I think we're much more able to not comment quite so much, not judge.
Guest:You know, back in those days, we were judging, judging, judging all the time.
Marc:And then you were doing it to yourself as well, because, you know, the fix was in on your brain, I imagine.
Marc:I mean, I think it's a it's a woman's struggle.
Marc:Many women struggle just without acting, just in life.
Guest:to to accept themselves yeah and and i know that that's true and i would definitely say that you know that that you know what doesn't kill you makes you stronger and i do feel now you know as the woman who has played mary anning in this film and in
Guest:being a part of those scenes that we've just been talking about.
Guest:I feel very proud of my 45 year old self.
Guest:You know, I've had three children.
Guest:I am who I am.
Guest:This is a different me, different physical me to the one that I was in my early twenties, et cetera, et cetera.
Guest:And I really, I really felt privileged to be a part of those scenes and not hide any of my true self.
Guest:And even in the film in general, just the way, you know,
Guest:where my face is now that, you know, I have the wrinkles and crunkles that exist on my face.
Guest:Now I'm proud of those things, you know, the, the age and the backs of my hands that I've loved and lost and cared for, you know, I, I, I, I really, really value and appreciate that.
Guest:Being able to show all of those things without censorship and without hesitation as well.
Guest:You know, there's a lot to be said for that.
Guest:And maybe I am confident enough to do that now, you know, whereas I definitely wouldn't have been when I was younger.
Marc:Well, there's a fine line as you get older between confidence and not giving a fuck anymore about certain things.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:I got to remember that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Isn't there a saying where when you're a woman at a certain point, you have to choose between your ass and your face or something, something like that.
Marc:But I'm just finding with so many things that used to seem so important, you know, you get to a certain age where you're like, how the hell was that?
Marc:Was I so hung up on that?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:You know, but I thought all that all those scenes in the movies were played very, you know, honestly.
Marc:And you could feel the honesty of of of the of the acting and of being in those moments like it really is a special movie.
Marc:And I and you explaining it to me in the context of.
Marc:of, you know, cultural objectification and whatnot is really, I mean, that's powerful as well because I felt what I felt watching the entire movie and I found it to be something unique in terms of how it depicts women, just period, you know, in terms of films.
Guest:Well, I mean, I'm really, you know, that's, I'm really thrilled to
Guest:to to hear that you know because because for me it's it's it's a it's a story about two people who fall in love and the fact that they are both women is never explained or addressed with any degree of secrecy or fear and for me that's quite important because you know by telling a story in that way i think we're contributing to hopefully normalizing same-sex connection
Guest:And perhaps, you know, the progression of how audiences view LGBTQ people and their relationships will slip much more into our mainstream if we're able to tell stories in this way without making secrecy or fear part of the narrative.
Guest:Or fetishizing.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:You know, which is just a dated way of thinking, quite frankly.
Marc:I agree.
Marc:But at this point, like because it's sort of interesting.
Marc:I was talking to my producer about it.
Marc:You know, the type of women that you have played in your life.
Marc:I mean, you know, and I don't know who I can't remember what other actress I asked is that you do collect a certain amount of.
Marc:of personas i think that you've moved through a lot of feminine persona i think i asked glenn close about this you know what stays with you you know because if you look at even going into like eternal sunshine do you feel that all these women have moved through you i mean do you when you look at the women you've played the different types of women yeah i do a bit i do i do and and it's interesting because when i do look back over my career
Guest:I always can remember exactly what was going on in my life at the time that I was playing a certain role.
Guest:And at the time, I would have had no concept of the fact that actually I was definitely channeling a person or something through a character or was playing that role.
Guest:What was that during Eternal Sunshine?
Guest:During Eternal Sunshine, I'd had my daughter.
Guest:I was feeling really independent.
Guest:I'd moved to New York.
Guest:It was just like a time of kind of
Guest:You know, fun, crazy, you know, just I just felt sort of like, I don't know, effervescent with life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that definitely all came through in that character.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I do feel I do feel like, you know, yeah, these women sort of, you know, they definitely sort of move through me in some way.
Guest:Some of them are harder, you know, to get rid of than others.
Guest:Like which ones?
Guest:Well, it was quite hard to get rid of Mary Anning, actually, I'll be honest, just because it was quite an immersive experience.
Guest:She's just so different to me.
Guest:You know, how she physically moves is totally different to me.
Guest:So reining in my own quite busy energy and finding that sort of stillness and precision to her.
Guest:was something that, you know, I couldn't just sort of do it on the day.
Guest:You know, that came with all the preparation and learning how to fossil hunt and learning how to use all of her old tools and understanding her life and, you know, living the rhythm of her life, you know, separate to my own family, which was weird.
Marc:Right.
Marc:So those were your decisions, you know, about how she moved.
Marc:Like they were conscious that, you know, that you had to shut these things off in yourself in order to find her.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And it was very weird.
Guest:And there were days when I would think, well, I'm sure I didn't do anything that was any good today.
Guest:You know, I'd go home and think, well, people might watch this film and just think, well, Kate Winslet's just not even doing anything because I felt like I was being so different to my true self.
Marc:Oh, it's heavy.
Marc:It was so heavy.
Marc:It certainly didn't read like you weren't doing anything.
Guest:It was sort of like the heavy energy, that sort of like bolted pack horse energy that she has that was quite hard to create every day, you know.
Guest:I sort of had to do lots of dancing at the end of the shoot.
Guest:Crazy dancing in the kitchen to get rid of it.
Marc:But when you were in it, what did you have to focus on in order to get there?
Marc:Like her tools, the chair?
Guest:Yeah, I had her.
Guest:So I worked with all of those old tools.
Guest:I really did learn enough to be able to
Guest:fossil finds myself.
Guest:I actually found a piece of an ichthyosaur skull myself and was able to identify that that was what it was.
Guest:And the part of the skull that it was, it was actually a bit of an eye socket.
Guest:And I was very proud of that.
Guest:And I found a lot of ammonites.
Guest:So I was very proud of those two, which I have all of them.
Guest:It was a little bit.
Guest:I did get a little bit.
Guest:I can't walk on a beach now without immediately scouring amongst the stones, even if I know there's going to be nothing there because it's the wrong part of the country.
Guest:It's just become automatic.
Guest:But it was a wonderful thing to do, actually, you know, to really explore what is beneath your feet on some of those beaches.
Guest:And by the way,
Guest:we filmed on the beaches where Mary would have worked.
Guest:And I trained on those beaches as well.
Guest:So to truly be walking in her footsteps was an enormous blessing.
Guest:And I just tried to live as much as I could
Guest:in a way that was sort of similar to how her rhythms would have been.
Guest:I lived alone from a Sunday night till a Friday night in this, you know, quite blustery, cold, rattly cottage in Lime Regis.
Marc:Do you feel like this was the most in-depth you got with building a character, looking back on all the characters?
Guest:Well, I mean, you know, I always have to sort of concentrate quite a lot, but it was definitely up there with, you know, like the sort of the handful that I can think of that have sort of been quite tough, like Mildred Pierce, Revolutionary Road, The Reader.
Guest:It was up there with that little handful.
Marc:It's interesting because those are the inner life of those characters is really sort of what you're protecting from the surface.
Marc:And that's what's bringing it to life in a way, right?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, that's right.
Guest:Because so often, you know, with those characters that I just mentioned, and it's the same with Marianne, it's all her internal stuff and her internal world that is actually driving the character.
Guest:And so, you know, you can't just sort of invent that on the day you, you know, there's definitely a certain degree of layering and preparing and really exploring what those things are that make that person, the person that the audience hopefully needs.
Marc:That's interesting, because the character in Little Children, that's a person whose inner life was naive.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Guest:You're right.
Guest:That's a great description.
Guest:Yeah, her inner life was completely naive and fantastical, utterly fantastical, and sometimes even unhinged, you know?
Guest:Huh.
Guest:Yeah, I know.
Guest:That's a long time ago.
Guest:I turned 30 on that film.
Guest:At the end of that shoot, I turned 30.
Marc:What was going on in your life during that time?
Guest:No, actually, I was kind of doing quite well then.
Guest:I was like, yeah, everything was okay.
Guest:But I did have little children.
Guest:I did have little children.
Guest:There was a big juggle.
Guest:That was a huge juggle, I remember.
Guest:My son Joe was only two, I think.
Guest:It was 2005.
Guest:My son, Joe, was only two.
Guest:My daughter, Mia, was only five.
Guest:Yeah, it was a juggle.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I was in that world.
Guest:I was in that world of, you know.
Marc:So it worked out.
Marc:It fed it.
Guest:Yeah, I guess.
Marc:But it's interesting because, like, you know, as the type of actor you are and, you know, you are British.
Marc:And like you were saying earlier, that people assume because you speak well and that you had all this training or whatnot.
Marc:But you don't.
Marc:It doesn't seem like you're detached from Shakespeare, which is unique for a British actor.
Guest:I've done one piece of Shakespeare in my life and it was terrifying.
Guest:Absolutely terrifying.
Guest:Oh my God.
Guest:And I don't know that I ever really want to do it again, to be honest with you.
Guest:You know, people say, oh, I don't get Shakespeare.
Guest:It's like a foreign language.
Guest:Actually, yeah, it kind of is.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:And it's beautiful when it's done very, very well, which never has been by me.
Guest:But it is staggering.
Guest:I mean, you know, you didn't train with it.
Guest:That's the bar.
Guest:No, I certainly did not.
Guest:But I had no idea what I was doing.
Marc:That's so interesting to me, because that's why that's what makes you unique.
Marc:Is that, you know, because your ability to like in talking to you and I assume this is true because you're one of these people that I feel like I've somehow I knew because I've seen you for your whole life.
Marc:So like there is a relationship that one builds as an audience with like, oh, there she is.
Marc:I remember her from when she was a little girl.
Guest:But it's funny, actually, that is hilarious.
Marc:But but there is a visceral engagement that you have with emotional life that is not that you can't pretend it.
Marc:You can't classically train that into somebody.
Marc:And I think it's what separates you.
Guest:You know, I try and not use, you know, like labels or words.
Guest:But, you know, some people will often say to me, oh, do you think you're method?
Guest:Are you a bit method?
Guest:And I'm like, no, no.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But but, you know, but but you're right.
Guest:Like as an actor, quite honestly, my MO is, OK, what can I get for free?
Guest:Like, what can I get out of this situation, this costume, this scene, this location?
Guest:What can I get for free?
Guest:And with Mary Anning, I had to take as much as I could because it's a character existed in 1840, you know?
Guest:Right.
Guest:And sometimes you can draw parallels to your own life or bits of your past life.
Guest:And sometimes you just can't.
Guest:And with Mary, I couldn't.
Guest:I had to fully invent the lot of it.
Marc:So getting for free is you mean by like, you know, this like this.
Marc:And I only know this because of doing some a little acting myself is that, you know, you're you're on the set.
Marc:You're wearing the hat.
Marc:You're wearing the clothes.
Marc:You know, you've got it.
Marc:And it's sort of like this is all part of the work.
Marc:I'm not doing it, but it's making my job easier.
Marc:And if I can live in this, then then we'll pull this off.
Guest:Yeah, but it can also be, you know, you've woken up that morning.
Guest:You didn't sleep too well.
Guest:You have three cups of coffee and then you feel like crap and you're walking onto the set and you're in that costume and you're doing that.
Guest:Well, you have not set yourself up too well for that day.
Guest:So you better damn well use what you've done to yourself.
Guest:Right.
Right.
Guest:To get through the day.
Guest:And sometimes that can also be quite useful or it can just be, you know, I've had a phone call on the way to work that just didn't go quite according to plan or I wasn't able to fully complete and it's left me feeling somewhat frustrated.
Guest:Well, that will end up going into that character for that day in some form.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It just sometimes that does just happen, you know, frustrating things will throw you and you just rather than go, oh, I can't do it because that happened.
Guest:You have to say, well, actually, maybe I can do it because that happened.
Guest:OK, what can I use for free from that?
Marc:I see.
Marc:OK, right.
Guest:I try and do I just try and do that.
Marc:Well, but but but so that but so the trick then is really just how do I get present with where I'm at now and service this character as opposed to pretend or act in a way?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And so with like with Marianning, you know, I would absolutely not use my phone until the end of each day.
Guest:I wouldn't even switch it on because then I would be too engaged with the sort of the busyness of iPhone and, you know, contemporary world of it all.
Right.
Guest:And I wouldn't do that.
Guest:I would drive myself to work.
Guest:I would stay in my own headspace.
Guest:I sort of created this sort of bunker for Mary and me to kind of exist in, which was quite weird and a bit hard.
Guest:And, you know, it was definitely an experience, you know, that was a bit unusual in terms of, you know, being a bit emotionally absent from my own little family, you know.
Guest:I was very much somewhere else, you know, and just not not not particularly available.
Guest:That's good, though.
Guest:Monday till Friday.
Guest:It was good, but it was it was hard.
Guest:I mean, I'm not going to lie.
Guest:It was it was hard.
Guest:But luckily, I've got an utterly amazing husband who.
Guest:can do everything in my absence, thank God.
Marc:What does he do?
Marc:What does your husband do?
Guest:He looks after us all.
Marc:Okay, good.
Guest:Yeah, he's just wonderful.
Marc:I've just been told that we have to wrap it up.
Marc:okay um but this was great it was great talking to you great talking to you too thank you that's really great love that and uh i love the movie and i and i love the uh i love all the work i'm a big fan and uh and good luck with everything you know and promoting this thing because i think it should be seen thank you very much yeah well hopefully okay take care thank you bye
Marc:Okay, that's it.
Marc:Hopefully we'll see what happens.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:What's today?
Marc:Thursday?
Marc:So I'm not going to talk to you until Monday?
Marc:Holy fuck.
Marc:Good luck, everybody.
Marc:Be safe.
Marc:I'll play some guitar now.
Thank you.
guitar solo
Guest:Boomer lives.
Guest:Monkey.
Guest:La Fonda.
Guest:Cat angels everywhere.