Lock the gate. All right, let's do this, how are you? What the fuckers, what the fuck next? What the fuck, buddies? What's happening? I'm Marc 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. I never missed the Monday or Thursday. We've done the show. We've been here for you, planning on staying here for you.

Kate Winslet is on the show today. You know, she is obviously Kate Winslet, she's Kate Winslet, she's in this amazing new movie currently called Ammonite. It's it's an interesting, beautiful art movie, a darkly poetic love story, I don't even know if I say it's dark, it takes place in the eighteen hundreds. It's about a British paleontologist who is sort of.

Not down on her luck, but she lives in a small southern coastal town with her mother. She doesn't have a lot of money. Male paleontologists steal her discoveries and call them their own.

And she was supposedly brilliant. She's historically a real character played by Kate Winslet. CEO Sharon in 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.

And it's what sort of unfolds in this strange little world. I never understand why people make movies like this, but the unfolding of the love story and the unfolding of these two people.

Who, you know, learn to be with each other in this very difficult situation because of who Kate Winslet character is.

It's just it's an interesting when I watch 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, you don't see movies like this much anymore, this type of independent art film.

But it's truly a beautiful movie and it's a it's a challenging. It's not a challenging love story, it's a love story about a challenging love between these two people.

And I just I couldn't believe how beautiful it was and how well acted it was.

So because I was so involved with that movie, Kate Winslet and I talk about it at length and it was very engaging.

I'm very happy. I have the job. I have talking to Kate Winslet. 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, shade was falling. The trim on the window was detaching. So I had to I had to get up in there. I had to find a nail, had a hammer the trim back in, then pull out the screw from the blind and recruit in another place because that was causing the problem.

So I had to unscrew and screw.

And I you know, I learned something about tools, not unlike guitar or anything else, is that I can handle a tool. I can handle a drill, a hammer, screwdriver.

I can I can handle the thing that you put your putty holes with. I can handle one of those with a wrench. OK, but wrenches, sockets, socket wrench is not a problem. I could probably handle a crowbar if necessary. I can handle a shovel. I pick pick. Not so much. Picks are tricky. Shovels I can't break can do a rake, but then I think we're just getting into yard work taking a heavy toll. Sander, I can do a sander.

Not great with an axe. I can play guitar but I can't an axe. I'm not confident with an axe. 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. But we expect ourselves to be able to do this stuff because we can handle a tool. But unless you're handling tools all the time when you're working with tools on a consistent basis, it's going to be hit or miss.

All right, I can do it, I can focus, I can get the job done, but I'm not I'm not using tools all the time I practiced at it. I can't, like, drill behind my back, can't do any tricks with the drill or the hammer.

What's my point? It's crooked, it's crooked, I put it up crooked, and now it's going to be crooked because I handle 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, like, fuck, fuck, how come this how come that's not going in far enough that you don't notice? Hey, you're about a half inch off. So this side of it, is that a little bit of an angle that I'll notice for the rest of my life and then you just got to rationalize it, right? I personalized my house.

I know it. I did the work. I'm proud of that. I did it poorly. But I did it and now I'll see it, my poorly done work for the rest of my life for as long as I'm in this house.

But eventually I'll stop noticing it. Eventually, things fade. People move on. Will be reminded. But we'll move on. I was encouraged. By an article in a weird way that I saw, because there's a lot of explaining going on, we don't know I don't know if this country is going to be overrun by fascists eventually. I'm very tired of people talking about like, hey, I don't want the political talk. This isn't political talk. This is the life or death of our form of government talk.

That's not political. This is reality.

Yeah, 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 nationalist fascists, 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. So they are shameless fascist movement who believes and buys into a fundamental lie about the last election and also a mythology that is incorrect, two key ingredients of fascists.

How do you delude the angry people? How do you trigger them into killing? 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? How do you do that? What answers? We have explanations, a lot of speculation. But the one thing I can tell you is that it's happening. It's real.

And I'm fucking I got no patience for this conversation around, you know, Twitter shutting people out. Good. Good, 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.

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, I don't know that that's censorship.

That seems pretty practical because everybody wants to survive. People want the freedom to live the life they want to live.

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. 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. Go out and talk all you want. Find another outlet. I'm sorry, sad. Trumpy can't just get on TV like an ordinary fuckin president and use the bully pulpit there. Why? He has to because doesn't repeat enough.

He can't pounded and pounded and pounded on all levels into people's heads. Fragile people who believe the bullshit who get triggered by his narcissism. He invented them. He invented their minds. They are extensions of him. It's not political. They may have been angry. There have always been racism, white nationalists and fucking hateful whack jobs in this fucking country. It was built by some, but he activates. He's a radical lizer. 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 companies decision. In the middle of all this, there's an interview in Scientific American because, you know, is looking for answers. What are we going to do with these people? Well, this is the only thing I've seen and 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 fucking time, it's not pounded into you all the time. If your obsession isn't triggered constantly, if you cut the fucking head off the snake.

But in an interview in Scientific American with this thinking human name, Bande XLE. Was a forensic psychiatrist and president of the World Mental Health Coalition, and the question presented them, what attracts people to Trump? What is their animus or driving force? And the answer this smart human gave was the reasons are multiple and varied, but in my recent public service book profile of a Nation, I've outlined two major emotional drives, narcissistic symbiosis and shared psychosis. Does that sound like a relationship you're in?

A narcissistic symbiosis refers to the developmental wounds that make the leader follower relationship magnetically attractive. 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. When such wounded individuals are given positions of power, they arouse similar pathology in the population that creates a lock and key relationship. Shared psychosis refers to the infectiousness of severe symptoms that goes beyond ordinary group psychology.

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, paranoia and propensity for violence, even in previously healthy individuals. I'm quoting this interview with this person, Bande XLE, forensic psychiatrist and president of the World Mental Health Coalition.

But here's the line. Here's the line. The treatment is removal of exposure. That's the quote. OK, how do we stop fascism, 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?

The treatment is removal of exposure, he's going to be out of office, he's been banned from social media platforms, from propagandising. So maybe. Over time. That removal of exposure will settle things down or it's just going to be a bloody shit show for the rest of however long this fucking country survives. And I hope they keep arresting these insurrectionist and these seditionists. As examples of rule of law. Anyway. We're doing a little promo swap with an old pal this week.

I've known Conan O'Brien for over 25 years, and if you like me, if you like this show, if you like Conan, you'll like Conan O'Brien needs a friend.

I've been on his TV show like dozens and dozens of times, but I was on one of the early episodes of his podcast, and now he's had all kinds of other people on. And it's where Conan just gets to hang out and be himself. So go check it out. You can listen to episodes with everyone from Michelle Obama to Tom Hanks to me, where I told him that he'd probably do OK with this podcast thing. New episodes of Conan O'Brien Needs a Friend are out every Monday.

So subscribe and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

OK, Kate Winslet is an amazing actress, and I had a very good time talking to her. Her new film, Ammonite, is now available on digital platforms and Blu ray and in selected theaters. She's also starring in the upcoming HBO detective series, Mayor of East Town that comes out in April.

And this is me talking to the amazing Kate Winslet.

Kate Winslet, hello. Hi, how are you? Actually, I'm all right, how are you doing? Fine. I'd love a cup of tea in half an hour room service round here.

Just like my husband, he is a very good husband, actually. That would be disturbing. Yeah, don't worry. I'll call. They say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, don't come in.

And if not, we will be recording. So go. OK. All right.

You know, the end of the are you guys going to fight or is just going to.

No, there's no way we're going to fucking do sometimes, but it's normally over. Like who fed the dog or the big stuff.

Yeah.

We did have quite a funny argument not not very long ago, which was over something so stupid.

It was like who had finished the last of the some kind of thing I'd made of the fridge.

Well, how far did that go? How bad did that go?

Not not very far. It was just like one of those dumb lockdown grubs. That makes no sense. Just like a complete waste of energy anyway.

Umm, yeah. Today, like, I woke up in a lockdown frenzy just aggravated, you know, actually.

Well actually no, I was slightly agitated because I didn't sleep very well last night.

Why. What do you think. What's happening.

No, nothing. I mean, no, no specific reason, although I did dream that I got vaccinated and that it didn't work. Oh. So maybe I was woken up out of that.

Well, I dreamt that they had done that. They had put the vaccination. The needle had gone into my arm right there in the vial had gone in.

They'd taken the needle out and the liquid was spraying all over the like me all over the floor. And then no one seemed to know how to cope with it, what to do. So they couldn't work out whether they should revaccinated me just half a vial, whether they should just discount that one and just do the whole thing all over again.

Oh, my God. It was very it was very it was very anxious making just because nobody knew what the protocol was and that I found really scary.

That's a global problem. Well, precisely. I mean, I was dreaming about the world, the world.

Clearly, there's no protocol. Ah, what is the protocol there? Are you getting that? How's it working?

So at the moment they are as quickly as they can, vaccinating over 90s and the eighties. Right. And key workers and health care workers. Right. And so my father has had his vaccination. He's eighty one. So it feels like a huge relief, either his first dose. So that's it. Yeah. I mean, I don't know.

Whenever we know, we'll just we still wait our turn, I think.

Well, I think that's why I think that's causing me the most anxiety is knowing it's out there and that they can't figure out a way to get it to everybody, you know, efficiently and quickly. And we have to wait four months, you know, just living in the same system, knowing that we could get some relief.

It's drive me. Yeah, I know. I know. I know. I think Canada seemed to have they seem to be ready to get everyone vaccinated.

You know, Summer, believe me, I'm I'm ready to move, but I can't even run away now. We're not even allowed to run away anymore. I know.

It's like Justin Trudeau, Jacinda Ardern, like, where do we go? It's crazy, man.

I mean, where are you? You're in the UK. I'm in the UK, yeah. South we live on the south coast of England. So we are really lucky that we are we're near the ocean. We have some nice outdoor space and yeah, we're we're good. We're all right. Yeah.

How many kids are with you. How many do you have. They're three and they're all dream. You know, I think I'm nuts.

Well, no, they're not good. They're not actually they're not too bad. I mean, my daughter is twenty so she's enormously she's enormously helpful around the house. And then I have a seventeen year old son just turned seventeen. So he's all excited because in England you can't start to learn how to drive until you're 17. So that's now. Right. So although he won't be able to have an instructor, it'll just be him and my husband on and around driving around.

And then there's a seven year old who just thinks that it's so great that everyone's just around all the time. I mean, he just have people to do.

Yeah, all these people to do drumming and Lego with him. I mean, he couldn't be more it couldn't be more thrilled with. Wait, you were in the pandemic movie.

What was. So I sure was.

Oh my God. That's right. It doesn't end well for you know, it doesn't involve me at all. But I did have quite a lot. 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, because I had to hold my breath, was like a plastic body bag. You could see me through. And I couldn't help but almost every take, yeah, I opened one eye and just say, does my bomblet begin this, you know?

Yeah.

Oh, I'd say, you know, don't look thin, just stupid, you know, typically vain nonsense crap.

Yeah, but I wasn't I was in contagion, which, you know, I mean, I have to be completely honest with you. When covid really hit, I was. Wearing the mask a before I was in Philadelphia, when we went into lockdown, I was doing a show for HBO and people were staring at me funny because I was right away. I was like, it's coming people. And I was walking down the street and in the grocery store with my with my mask on.

And people were looking at me like I was quite strange.

It's so weird the aversion and the weird resistance to it. I mean, people in Asia have been wearing them since SARS. I mean, you know, I used to see people on the plane. Asian people were wearing masks thinking like, what's up with that? And now it's like, well, now everybody's got to do it. I don't have a problem with it.

Well, I don't either. 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, you know, those children are going to grow up remembering wearing masks to nursery school or kindergarten, you know, and shops. I mean, that's what makes me sad. Not touching door handles. Right.

And they're you're also hugging my friends, you know, losing a year or however long this is going to take. 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.

That's right. And I think particularly for young people in their early 20s, I think for those individuals who have been hearing their parents say for years, these are the best years of your life, you know, going off to colleges and really exploring true selves.

And suddenly, you know, they're back at home with mum and dad. And, you know, it's a it's it is sad. It's very sad. And I think it's going to be hard, confidence wise for for those young people. And that's really hard to worry very, very hard. But it will continue to, I think, coming out the other side and regaining confidence, you know, connecting with their true selves. Again, I think that will take time, I'm sure.

Yeah, I find that. I'm just I'm I'm I'm 57. And I think that this isolation business has really helped me in connecting with my true self.

It's not great, but. Well, I don't like connecting with the side of myself. I become obsessed with sweeping the kitchen floor. Like, what is that about?

It's about having a little bit of control, Kate, in a world that's out of control. That's true. That's very true.

Very true. Yeah. But I like the fact that, you know, it's just me that does it because. Because I'm the one that could do it the fastest and probably the best. Right. You're the best at it. I don't know.

Actually, my 17 year old is a pretty good floor sweeper. It's got to be honest. Competition, competition going on.

You're having a good time. I mean, yeah, like I just realized when I was looking at stuff about you that you're like you're going you're doing this this arc with with Cameron. You're in this Avatar movie, right. This new one.

Like you're back with that guy.

You know, at this point, the reason I bring it up is because I he had me come down there to audition for something, to look at me for something. I had to go down there to that city. He built the Avatar City and was a speech. Yeah, right. But it was the weirdest thing.

It's like, you know, I walk in and he's like, well, we've got a we've got actors working here all the time, just, you know, flying around and stuff. So if you want to just come into a set and we'll just do it. I was like, what the fuck is happening here? So, like, have you been. What do you have you spent time down there? And is it is he making like, what, 20 movies at once?

What's happening?

I to be honest, I slightly lost track of how many he is making it. Once I did I did two at once in tandem with him and I'm on all of my work was actually in twenty eighteen but they're still shooting it, they're shooting the live action portion of it now and obviously they were held up because of covid et cetera.

But it was you know. Yeah you're right. It's an extraordinary experience. You know, you, you sort of go into this what feels like a huge souped up aircraft hangar, yet anything is possible. You want to fly today. You want to you know, you want to get on on ELU.

You want to do some spear fighting on the water with that, you know, but it was I mean, it was wonderful for me just to be part of something that's such a well oiled machine with great people, you know, incredible technicians and artists. And to be part of such a fantastic story, we're doing a lot of underwater work.

Yeah, I spent most of my work was was underwater. Yeah. Not just on the water in it, but under it. And I loved all of that. I worked with some extraordinary performers who are Cirque de Soleil water performers who who did a lot of the doubling work underwater. So to be honest, I spent a lot more time with those people, actually, than than than some of the actors. And it was just incredible. I mean, just the training and the whole process.

And he's got that like he's got like a little museum set up. He's got the Titanic down there. Yeah, he has. Which I didn't get to go to. My husband and my children were like, oh, wow, mom, we saw your dress. The blah, blah, blah, I'm like, that's going to exist. I'm like, oh, I was convinced I trashed that he's got the boat and everything.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a there's a whole there's a whole there's a whole visual archive down there, which is quite apparently quite spectacular.

Like what was it like just hooking up with that guy again. I mean that's like how many years is that? I mean the intensity of whatever you guys went through when you were a kid, it must like there must be either post traumatic or exciting or at the very least emotional.

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. But also with Avatar, he's got a lot more time to make that that that piece he ever had with Titanic. Yeah, clearly in two and a half years later. Yeah. Years later.

And and so I think. And I think that's just a process that he's entered into a rhythm that is just, you know, it's just really quite relaxed and also because he's so intricately connected with that entire world because he created it. Right. But this is sort of a confidence in him that sort of breeds collaboration and conversation. And it was great.

Was it really? You know, I'd walk I remember walking into the room on the first day of rehearsal and lots of folks were there or sat around the table. 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. So I walk into the room and Jim said, I just need to warn you before we go any further, we've all drank the Kool-Aid.

So you will be speaking not very, you know, within the next half an hour.

And what does he mean by that? But but, you know, they said there's a proper immersive experience to be had there.

And it was quite fascinating. And I loved being part of it. It was really a very special time.

Well, did you like has he changed a lot? I mean, I don't know what the process was with Titanic. And I know you were so much younger, but he struck me when I met with him. It was almost surreal because I couldn't believe I was meeting with him. But he was very intense but very accessible. But like, did you find like did you guys fall into a groove or has he changed, you know?

Yeah, he's definitely changed. But I think what you just said is really interesting, like, very intense, but accessible. Absolutely. It's like he's like a scientist.

Jim is a you know, 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.

And that's that remains the case. Where is he now?

But that remains the case just to make you feel better or to you or do you think you've got some magic knows he has some magic or he always knows what to do?

He you know, 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. He would never admit when he'd gotten something wrong. And that's completely changed. So when Avatar, we were doing this waterwork and they were trying to build quite a complicated sort of bridge floating, lowering, floating bridge structure for the camera. And it was like, no, it needs to be like this.

Trust me, I've done this a thousand times before. Do this, do this, do this, this. And then one hundred percent didn't work.

And he very quickly was like, OK, well that blows my bad projector and moved on.

But that was a definitely a new character. I was like, I'll get you admitting that you had an idea but didn't work. Yeah, it was really cool. It's really cool.

Yeah. Well you think, you know, you work on something for like ten years that you would be humbled by attempts that quite pan out. But like, how old were you when you did Titanic?

I turned twenty one on that shoot and Leo turned twenty two and I'm now forty five and he's forty six.

I interviewed him with you with Brad Pitt. It was the two of them. It was my God. And they had just come out of some other event and they were all electric you know. So two major movie stars being electric and I'm just sitting there trying to get my tape, my recorder to work.

But he.

Leo really brought up, he said that he knew the exact day and time that that his life changed, you know, because of Titanic, 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 ready to film God.

Yeah, yeah.

But you seem like that was a moment for you. Were you just you just bailed on it, but you knew that could happen.

Well well, I think I mean, when you say bailed on it, it's really funny. I think I went into self protective mode right away because the similar thing happened to me or that was on the satellite truck. It was just, you know, cars and cars full of British tabloid photographers who were photographing me, you know, going and buying a pint of milk in a newspaper. Right. And that was just weird. I mean, it was it was it was like night and day from one day to the next.

And also I was subjected to quite a lot of of sort of personal physical scrutiny. And I was criticized quite a lot. The British press were actually quite unkind to me and I felt I felt quite bullied, if I'm honest.

And I remember just thinking, OK, well, this is horrible and I hope it passes. And it did.

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, you know, definitely not. So. So and also the other thing, too, is that because I was so young, 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.

But I was still learning how to act. I'd only been doing it since I was 17. And so I still felt like I wasn't really ready to do lots of big Hollywood jobs. It was a huge responsibility. I, I didn't want to I didn't want to make mistakes. I didn't want to blow it. I wanted to be in it for the long game, you know. 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 try to have all those things that were totally.

Yeah, and exactly. Yeah. And then I have my, my daughter when I was twenty five and sort of all of that sort of stuff kind of evaporated a bit in terms of feeling watched and whether I cared about it, I just that just kind of went away really.

You think they were like, oh no because with my child, you know. And that was all.

Oh I thought you're saying that they weren't interested in you. She's got a kid. Now, let's move on.

Well, maybe they were definitely they were definitely less interested in me.

And that's the twenty year old. Yeah.

She's twenty now. Yeah.

But like so like at that point you say you were only acting a few years but yeah. I mean it seems that you were surrounded by actors all the time that you grew up in a world of actors. Well I did and I didn't.

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 this is sort of a huge pedigree and training that comes underneath me. 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 and in Redding, Berkshire, where I'm where I'm from. And my dad was an actor. But believe me, he was also he was also a Christmas tree seller.

He was a postman. He was a he worked for a tarmac firm. He he drove a van for a small company.

So he was a frustrated actor. Absolutely. Very, very much so.

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. So I keep seeing the struggles, you know, your father was going through as an actor was.

Well, I just well, I just imagined that I would have I would struggle as well. So I would I actively remember thinking to myself, OK, I've got to get a decent, well paid part time job with a nice boss who lets me take time off if I have to go on auditions. I really remember thinking that. How will that I never anticipated about 14.

So you knew you wanted to do it like your father was. Did your mother act as well?

No, my mother was not an actress, no. Funnily enough, it's the woman who put up with actors.

She was the woman who tolerated it. Oh. Oh, my poor poor mum. But her but her parents. This is very odd because she really was quite shy. My mother. Yeah. 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 with sort of interesting it's kind of like that weird kind of a you know, you kind of you get in relationships with with with things that are comfortable from your child. She was sort of stuck in an actor loop because, you know, it's it's funny.

I mean, it must be something in the genes. I don't know, because, you know, my older sister, my older sister act, my younger sister, she has five children and my younger sister, but she is also an actress when she's not being a parent. So it's just sort of everywhere, really. My daughter is now an actress. I mean, it's kind of just.

It is crazy. I think I was crazy. I mean, how come you haven't, like, all work together?

Have you like your sisters? No. No, we haven't. I think I'm probably going to work with my daughter in about a year's time. And there's something that's come up. Yeah, she's good. You can play your daughter.

She's good. Is she good? She might. She might. She's really good.

I'm really, really good. She's a lot better than I was at her age. Bloody hell. I mean, you know, she's really she's really she's quite grounded and very sort of just like I know she's very unafraid. I feel I was much more afraid and tentative when I was her age.

We self kind of what 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. You decided that you weren't quite good enough.

Well, I decided only I didn't know enough. I just I just knew that I didn't know enough. Yeah.

You know, I still had lots to learn, you know, but I think because I haven't been trained, you know, I left school when I was 16 and I got lucky. So I had a slight insecurity that people also, because of that British thing and speaking very well, people assumed I had this training, the sort of underpinning of wealth, of knowledge, and I didn't at all.

When were the first roles? I did?

I did a television job when I was six years old and a sitcom. And then I did I was cast in Peter Jackson's film Heavenly Creatures when I was 17 and the first film I ever did. Yeah, that was the first film I ever did. And then I did Sense and Sensibility when I was 19. I loved Melanie. Do you talk to Melanie still?

I haven't spoken to her for a while, but we've loosely kept in touch over the years. I did a show with her. I did a scene with her in a show and she's so great.

Yeah, she is wonderful actress. God, she's so good.

She's so all you guys in that movie, that movie was like, you know, it was like I feel traumatized watching that movie. Like, I think I remember the movie as being having a profound emotional effect on me.

You know, it's a really if that's interesting. I mean, yeah, I had a hugely emotional effect on me. I mean, I was 17 years old and as a first as a first experience, as a first first one out of the gate, just experience. Yeah. Playing a part in a film because of the nature of the story and playing those those to real life characters, it had to be incredibly immersive. So it taught me so much about just the process of acting and building a character and preparation and focus and.

Right. You know, all of those things which which really stood me in in quite good stead in terms of, you know, a short sharp injection of sort of education.

And how was theatre as a as a director? Did he did he.

Oh, he was amazing. He was just it was like it was like, you know, it was like working every day with your big brother or your dad or I mean, he was he was very he was very connected to me and Melanie as a friend and just really, really looked after us. The whole experience was was very powerful and emotional and done. And it was a small independent film made in New Zealand. We filmed in most of the real locations that they have actually taken place.

But it's a it's a real murder story.

And, you know, we we filmed in those places and that, you know, that has it that has a that has an effect on on you as a young person, you know, very special experience 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 of.

Yeah, yeah.

So if you weren't trained, like, where did you pick it, like you weren't like did you see your dad work? Did you go see your dad in shows?

Did you spend time at the theatre as a kid. I did.

I spent time at the theatre. Yes I did. I was in a sort of a you know, a kind of a kid's drama company, theatre company.

So you have the stage chops. I mean, you know, yeah, I'd I'd I'd experienced the feeling of standing on a stage in front of a big audience.

Yeah. 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 be be in films or even on television. I just assumed that I would have a sort of a struggling, hopefully interesting life in the theatre. Yeah. So the fact that suddenly I was doing films was totally Masaomi.

So where did you pick up did you just learn on the job then? I mean, was that the process?

Because I guess I learnt on the job, like even talking about Heavenly Creatures where you're sort of like, you know. Making choices and and sort of figuring out how to get these tools, I mean, how did who gave you those who told you those were the this is how you do?

Well, I mean, I you know, I honestly, I watched and I learned and I made mistakes and learned from them, you know. Yeah.

But also I had you know, I had some fortunate moments with great actors early on. You know, I did sense Sensibility when I was 19 years old, working with Emma Thompson and Alan Rickman 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, collaborative way. You know, which I I was already instinctively doing that, seeing it from actors who were much more experienced and wiser and older than myself.

That was one of the greatest things of all, because it was it was that that really set me up for Titanic. You know, when I did Titanic, I didn't have any delusions of grandeur. I was going to work. I was playing a part, you know, and people will say to me, oh, my God, it's such a big film. And I've got to say that it doesn't make any difference whether it's big or small.

I'd say the work is the same. Yeah. And I had already learned that work ethic thing by watching other actors and from other actors. From Emma and Alan.

Yeah. I mean, but they're like it strikes me that Emma's classically trained, right?

Yes, she is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So like, you know, I mean, that's a whole different approach.

You basically like saying, you know, and I'm not this is in in a judgmental way only because like I've been I've been doing some acting is that, you know, you come to it, that you're emotional availability as an actress is something that you engage sort of naturally 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 to everyone, you know, everyone has a totally different approach and a completely different process, you know, and also that changes all the time, even changes for me all the time, depending on depending on the nature of the role, I suppose. But yeah.

But I've definitely, definitely learnt on the job and still do. I still do. Honestly, there are still things that fascinate me.

Well I mean I watch the new movie Ammonite. Is that how you say it. Ammonite. Yeah. Ammonite. Yeah.

And like it's like it's very kind of powerful, poetic, sparse movie, you know, but it's so like, you know, intense and it's great. You're great in it. Kirsch's great. And it's a movie.

It's one of those movies where I watch. I'm like, who would think to tell the story, you know, like, yeah, where does this come from? But it's actually based on a real person.

Yeah, that's right. So it's it is it is based on on real people and a real person. Mariamne, who I play was she was a very significant female paleontologist of her time film is set in 1840 on Jurassic Coast of England, the south coast of England.

Is that where you shot it so near where you are now? It's about two hours from where I live and the coastline there is largely unchanged, it recedes every year. It's sort of quite a chalky line cliff face and they regularly have cliff falls there. Mariana was a formidable woman in a world of science and geology that was dominated by men who would these men would buy her fines and reappropriate them as their own discoveries and actually put their name on her on her work.

Right. And she she lived a life of extreme poverty and struggle, but she was brilliant at what she did. She found her first ichthyosaur when she was only 11 years old. She and her brother, it took them over a year to dig it out. And she was responsible for some very significant pioneering discoveries. But because she was a woman, no one ever knew anything about her. And even today, you know, if you if you Google Mariamne or you try and find a book about Mary Anning, you know, you will be able to find things about her finds, about her work that have been subsequently written over the years.

But there's very little known about her personal and private life. There's a lot known about her childhood. She because of how she lived in this extreme, extremely impoverished way with her mother and her father, who died when she was only 10. Have her father taught her everything she knew about fossil finding? And she had a quite close connection with with him. She she had several siblings die when I say several, like six six siblings died and two even before she was born, you know, smallpox sort of poverty illnesses.

And so the love story between. Yes, that's right. Is it is invented.

So there's really nothing known. Do people know? She would know. There's nothing there is nothing historically documented at all about Mary Jannings personal, intimate relationships with with women or men there. Nothing documented. And Francis Lee, the writer and director of the film, 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, and because she existed in a world that was dominated by men, he didn't feel that it would have been right to pair her with a man, because that's that was the thing that she was sort of struggling against in many ways, living in this very patriarchal society, patriarchal world.

And so it felt right to pair her with a woman. And what I really love about the story and about the the film, I've only seen it once. 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 women in marriages to men who are wealthier than men or they're married off because they need financial security or to have children to bring their children to become a parent.

But actually exploring this different, this different, 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. That, to me, was something really quite unusual and wonderful and that they they fall in love as a result of their connection over over ammonites, over the world of fossils and geology.

Right. But I mean, the way you describe it is different than like my experience seeing it, because my experience was that that was the character's husband was in the same profession as you, and she was sort of lost and repressed and, you know, kind of didn't quite know who she was and sickly. And you get stuck with her and you, you know, are there's something about the characters, your character's relationships with rocks and with this process of unearthing these dinosaur pieces and her sort of her hardness.

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, it's incredibly moving because it's such a quiet movie.

And I don't even like your performance. I mean, you don't talk that much.

No, I know. I know.

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. A life where she just goes out and hammers, rocks out there to find things 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 akin to like, you know, there was some oh, God, the longing of the whole thing was really too much.

So how do you like talking about work? I mean, how do you look at that story?

I mean, I see how you just explain to me the story and how you read it, but I mean, you rely completely on what's written to kind of find your way emotionally in that thing.

Well, you know, Mary Anning, when we see her in the film, she's in her she's in her early 40s. She actually died at the age of forty seven. Eventually, Mary Anning, sadly, of breast cancer. But, you know, we meet her at a time in the story where she is tired, she's living alone with her mother in quite an isolated private world. 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.

You know, there was a there was an air of sort of militia which or what, you know, what is she. So she had sort of retreated from society and hidden herself, hidden herself away. And as you point out, Charlotte Murchison, played by Sasha Ronan, 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.

So, yeah, as you say, he dumps her and leaves her behind for Mary to to mental careful. And Mary really only accepts this position because she needs the money, right?

Yeah. It's is so tragic, really and sad that Mary was so desperate for money.

But but then Charlotte becomes very ill and it's through nursing Charlotte back to health almost like she was her own child, that Mary realizes that she does feel for this woman. She she she feels this woman's sadness. There's something that's happened in her life that has made her quite closed off and lonely. And so they connect in this strange, sort of fractured, lonely world that they've both been been living in. And then, as you say, you know, Mary, that there isn't a lot of talking.

Mary doesn't speak very much in the film.

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. There was a lot of story to be told, and the script was very visual, very detailed in its description of, you know, just the space, the atmosphere in the room, the sounds, the birds, the crackle of the fire, the crashing of the waves. It was very, very detailed, textured script when I first read it.

And I absolutely loved it for those reasons. But yes, you're right, the longing and the very gradual connection between these two women that grows through the affection they have for one another and and the work that they're doing together out on those beaches and married, teaching Charlotte what she can and what she knows. Yeah.

And, you know, it's a story about self discovery because who we choose to love can end up defining who we are. 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. And I and I love that about it. I really appreciate that about the film.

I didn't know what to expect and I hadn't seen a movie like that in a long time. I don't feel like they make movies like that much anymore where.

Yeah, and there's a poetry to it and there's sort of a visual sensibility that's obviously very articulated and thought through.

And also like, you know, once you guys consummate, you know, your love and the sexual scenes, you know, are graphic and profound, but earned and not gratuitous in any way.

But, you know, but you're very respectful and very raw, you know, to see both of those women explode in that type of energy and then kind of regroup.

It's pretty that must have been insane to shoot. I mean, I've been on sets where they're close sets, but it must be sort of like, all right, everybody out.

Well, I mean, this you know, I think what was wonderful for Sasha and I. Yeah. About the typical play as these the actors playing these parts was that we we were able to access in our preparation letters, real love letters that were written between women, women who were actually in marriages to men. Right.

But but were quietly connecting in the sort of a sisterhood way that spilled over into intense friendship that then would become very intense, intimate sexual relationships that would last a lifetime. And so we wanted to send a very, very detailed information in these letters that we that we were able to access have that that other relationship with the woman in town that seems loaded and that like it's not quite explained, but it's understood.

Yeah, it's very clear that Mary Anning had a previous connection with Elizabeth Philipot, who was also a real character in history, by the way, who lives locally in the town. So but, you know, one thing that Sasha and I really did feel and talking about the film now, you know, it's 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.

It's like we're breathing without even thinking about it.

And because we didn't have the objectification of women in any way in our film, it was utterly equal and connected because of the love these to these two people share for each other. For me, it was almost like a breath of fresh air. You know, there was no leader. You know, so often you read a heterosexual love scene on paper and the script and the man is often the one who's wooing and leading and the woman is flirting or wanting to be sort of taken in some way.

You know, these these these things are very automatically written.

Right.

Or very often when reading a heterosexual love scene on paper, it will say something like the woman's on top dominating now.

Right. Why does she why can't she just know what she wants? Why does she have to be dominating it? 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 of of the male counterpart. Right. And we didn't have any of that in Ammonite. And that for me was new. It was really new.

And I, I just it was like a that's interesting. I just it was very interesting. And it was a relief to be part of something that was utterly equal and connected and safe because of those things.

Right. And because, like, you don't really it's almost a surprise to everyone when it kind of happens, when it finally consents. And also there's so many layers of clothing involved, it's hard to objectify.

That's true. They did wear a lot of clothes in those days. So therefore, there were a lot of things that needed to come off. That is correct.

Well observed, but no, but I mean, the when it does happen, like, I don't know that I would have thought about it like that because I'm not thinking about it coming from the angle that you are, but especially given your history with the pushback against the type of objectification.

I think that like it seems that early on you realized 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.

Well, I think I certainly, you know, 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, quite honestly.

Well, you know, curvy Kate, 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 but 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 strong, headstrong.

No, I'm just telling you that.

But I like carbs. Yeah. What's wrong with that? You know? Yeah, but that's changed now, mom.

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, Hollywood was was completely riddled with with very, very slender women who, you know, in a way that was perhaps not entirely balanced or perhaps quite right. And I think that's gone a bit now. I think where I think that's true, I think we're much more able to not comment quite so much, not judge.

You know, back in those days, we were judging, judging, judging all the time.

And then you were doing it to yourself as well, because, you know, the fix was in on your brain, I imagine. I mean, I think it's a it's a woman's struggle. Many women struggle just without acting just in life to to accept themselves. Yeah.

And I know that that's true. And I would definitely say that, you know, that that 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 being a part of those scenes that we've just been talking about, I feel very proud of my forty five year old self. You know, I've had three children. I am who I am. This is a different me, different physical me to the one that I was in my early twenties, et cetera, et cetera.

And I really I really felt privileged to be a part of those scenes and not hide any of my true self, and even in the film in general, just the way you know where my face is now, the you know, I have the wrinkles and crinkles that exist on my face. Now, I'm proud of those things, you know, the age in the backs of my hands that I have loved and lost.

And oh, yeah, I really, really value and appreciate being able to show all of those things without censorship and without the hesitation as well. You know, there's a lot to be said for that, and maybe I am confident enough to do that now, you know, whereas I definitely wouldn't have been when I was younger.

Well, there's a fine line as you get older between confidence and not giving a fuck anymore about certain things.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's true. I'm going to remember that. Yeah.

Is there a scene 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.

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 like, how the hell was that?

Was I so hung up on that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, but I thought all that all those scenes in the movies were played very, you know, honestly. 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.

And I and you explaining it to me in the context of. You know, cultural objectification and whatnot is really that 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 in terms of combat.

Well, I mean, I'm really you know, that's I'm really thrilled to to to hear that, you know, because because for me, 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 in films.

And perhaps, you know, the progression of how audiences view LGBTQ people in 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 or fetishized, that wasn't part of exactly which is just a dated way of thinking, quite frankly. I agree.

But at this point, like because it's sort of interesting, I was talking to my producer about it, you know, the type of women that you have played in your life.

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 of personas. I think that you've moved through a lot of feminine.

So I think I as 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, I always can remember exactly what was going on in my life at the time that I was playing a certain role.

And and at the time, I would have had no concept of the fact that actually I was definitely channeling a personal something through the character or was playing that role.

What was that eternal sense of my own lives? Where were you going during it all? During Eternal Sunshine? I'd have my daughter. I was feeling really independent. I'd move to New York. It was just like a time of kind of fun, crazy. Just I just felt sort of like, I don't know, effervescent with life. Yeah. And that definitely all came through in that character. Yeah.

But I do I do feel like, you know. Yeah. These women sort of the definitely sort of move through me in some way. Some of them are harder to get rid of than others if you're worse than them or.

Well it was quite hard to get rid of Mariamne actually. I'll be honest, just because it was quite an immersive experience. She's just so different to me. You know, how she physically moves is totally different to me. So reining in my own quite busy energy and finding that. So the stillness and precision to her was something that I didn't I couldn't just sort of do it on the day that came with all the preparation and learning how to fossil hands and learning how to use all of our old tools and understanding her life and living the rhythm of our life, you know, separate to my own family, which was weird.

Right. So those were your decisions, you know, about how to move Dweik if they were conscious that, you know.

Yeah, yeah. That you had to shut these things off in yourself in order to find her.

Yeah. And it was very weird. And there were days when I would think, well, I'm sure I didn't do anything that was any good today. I'd go home and think, well, people know what this moment is. Does that OK with us just not even doing anything? Because I felt like I was being so different to my true self, I was happy.

It was so heavy. We avoided it certainly didn't read like you weren't doing anything.

It was sort of like the heavy energy that sort of like bolted packhorse energy. Yeah, she has.

That was quite hard to create every day. You know, I sort of had to do lots of dancing, really.

I just sort of. Yeah, yeah. And then see dancing in the kitchen to get rid of it, you know.

But when you were in it, would you have to focus on in order to get there like her tools, the chair I mean.

Yeah I had her. Yeah. So I so I worked with all of those old tools. I really did learn enough to be able to finds myself. I actually found a piece of the skull myself and was able to identify that that was what it was. And the part of the skull that it was it was actually the a bit of an eye socket. And I was very proud of that. And I found a lot of ammonites. I was very proud of those two, which I have a new hobby.

One of them was a little bit I did get a little bit I can't walk on a beach now without immediately scouring amongst the stones, even if I know there's going to be nothing that is the wrong part of the country. It's just become automatic. But it was a wonderful thing to do, actually, you know, to really explore what is beneath your feet on some of those beaches. And by the way, we filmed on the beaches where Mary would have worked.

And I trained on those beaches as well. So to truly be walking in her footsteps was an enormous blessing. And I just tried to live as much as I could in a way that was sort of similar to how her rhythms would have been. I lived and I lived alone from a Sunday night till a Friday night and this quite blustery, cold, rattly cottage in Lyme Regis.

Do you feel like this was the most in-depth you got with building a character, looking back on all the characters?

Well, I mean, you know, I always have to sort of concentrate quite a lot, but it was definitely up there with, like sort of the handful that I can think of of sort of been quite tough, like Mildred Pierce, Revolutionary Road, the reader. It was up there with with with that little handful.

It's interesting because those are the inner life of those characters is really sort of what you're protecting from the surface. And that's what's bringing it to life. And it's in a way, right?

Well, that's right. Because so often with those characters that I just mentioned, it's the same with Mary Anning. It's it's all it's all her internal stuff and her internal world. Yeah. That is actually driving the character. And so you can't just sort of invent that on the day. You know, there's definitely a certain degree of layering and preparing and and really exploring what those things are that make that person the person that the audience hopefully sees.

That's interesting because like the character in, like Little Children, that's a person who's whose inner life was naive.

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You're right. That's a great description. Yeah. I was completely naive and fun and fantastical, utterly fantastical and sometimes even unhinged, you know.

Yeah. So that's a long time ago. I turned 30 on that film. At the end of that shoot, I turned 30.

What was going on in your life that during that time?

No, actually, I was kind of I was kind of doing quite well then. I was like, yeah, I'm like, OK.

But I did have little children. I did have little children. There was a big drug that was a huge juggle. I remember my my son Joe. My son Joe was only two. I think it was twenty 2005. My son Joe was only to my daughter. Mia was only five. So yeah, it was, it was a juggle. Yeah. And I was in that world, I was in that world as you know.

So it worked out. It fed it. Yeah. Yeah.

But it's interesting because like you know as the type of actor you are and you know you are British and like you were saying earlier, that people assume because you speak well and that you had all this training or whatnot, but you don't it doesn't seem like you're you're detached from Shakespeare, which is unique for a British actor.

I've done one piece of Shakespeare in my life, and it was it was terrifying. Absolutely terrifying. Oh, my God.

And I don't know that I ever really want to do it again, to be honest with you. You know, people say, oh, Shakespeare, it's like a foreign language, actually. Yeah, it kind of is.

Yeah, I get it.

And it's beautiful when it's done very, very well, which never has been by me. But it is staggering. I mean, but you don't train with this. The Bard certainly did not. But that's all I have no idea what I was doing.

That's so interesting to me because that's that's what makes you unique, 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, I feel like I've somehow I knew because I've seen you for your whole life.

So like there is a relationship that one builds. There's an audience with like, oh, there she is. I remember her from when she was a little girl.

But it's funny actually that, isn't it? Yeah, there is. But but there is a visceral engagement that you have with emotional life that is not that you can't pretend that you can't classically trained that into somebody. And I think it's what separates you.

You know, I try and not use like labels or words. But, you know, some people will often say to me, oh, do you think your method is that method? And I'm like, oh, no. Yeah, I know. You're right.

Yeah, but but but but you're right. As an actor, quite honestly, my ammo is OK. What can I get for free? Like, what can I get out of this situation, this costume, this scene, this location?

What can I get for free? And with Mary Anning, I had to take as much as I could because it's a character existed in 1840, you know, and sometimes you can draw parallels to your own life or bits of your past life and sometimes you just can't marry.

I couldn't I had to fully invent the a lot of it.

So getting for free is you mean by like, you know, this, like this.

And I only know this because of doing some a little acting myself is that, you know, you're on the set, you're wearing the hat, you're wearing the clothes you know, you've got. And it's sort of like this is all part of the work. Yeah, I'm not. Doing it, but it's making my job easier, and if I can live in this, then then we'll pull this off.

Yeah, but it can also be you know, you've woken up that morning, you didn't sleep too well. 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 well, you have not set yourself up too well for that day. So you better damn well use what you've done to yourself. Right. You get through the day 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 that's left me feeling somewhat frustrated. Well, that will end up going into that character for that day in some form.

Yeah, 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 happens, you have to say, well, actually, maybe I can do it because that happened. OK, what can I use for free from that?

So I see. OK, right. I try and I just try and do that.

Well but but so that. But 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.

That's right.

And so with like with Mary Anning, you know, I would absolutely not use my phone until the end of each day. I wouldn't even switch it on because then I would be too engaged with the sort of the business of iPhone and the contemporary world.

And I wouldn't do that. I would you know, I would drive myself to work. I would stay in my own headspace. I sort of created this sort of bunker for Mary and me to kind of existed, which was quite weird and a bit hard. 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, I was very much somewhere else, you know, and just not not not particularly available.

That's good. No, Monday till Friday. It was good, but it was it was hard. I mean, I'm not going to lie. It was it was hard. But luckily, I've got an utterly amazing husband who can do everything in my absence.

And God, what's what does he do with your husband? He looks after us all. OK, good. Yeah, he's just wonderful. I've just been told that we have to we have to wrap it up.

OK, but this is great. It was great talking to you.

Great talking to you too. Thank you. That's really great. Love that.

And I love the movie. And I, and I love the I love all the work. I'm a big fan and 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.

OK, take care. Bye bye. OK, that's it. Hopefully we'll see what happens. I don't know what I don't know what's today, Thursday. So I'm not going to talk to you till Monday. Holy fuck. Good luck, everybody. Be safe. I play some guitar now. No lives monkey, not fond cat angels everywhere.