Bookshelfie: Women’s Prize Podcast - S6 Ep21: Bookshelfie: Tanya Reynolds

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Actress Tanya Reynolds talks about why being an introvert is a superpower, her final Sex Education scenes and when books come into your life and act like medicine.  Tanya is perhaps known best for her scene-stealing role as Lily Iglehart in the Emmy award-winning Netflix show Sex Education, but has been gracing our screens with roles in Outlander, Death in Paradise and more recently 2020’s film adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, alongside Anya Taylor-Joy and Bill Nighy. Tanya was named  as one of Screen International's Stars of Tomorrow in 2020, and has recently been treading the boards at London’s Almeida Theatre in critically acclaimed play A Mirror. Tanya’s book choices are: ** Angus, Thongs and Full Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison ** Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë **  My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferante  ** Quiet by Susan Cain ** Everyone in this room will someday be dead by Emily Austen  Vick Hope, multi-award winning TV and BBC Radio 1 presenter, author and journalist, is the host of season six of the Women’s Prize for Fiction Podcast. Every week, Vick will be joined by another inspirational woman to discuss the work of incredible female authors. The Women’s Prize is one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, and they continue to champion the very best books written by women. Don’t want to miss the rest of season six? Listen and subscribe now! This podcast is sponsored by Baileys and produced by Bird Lime Media.

At Harrison Healthcare, we know that lasting health starts with personalized care. We're not just a clinic. We're your partner in prevention, helping you achieve your health and longevity goals. Our expert team combines evidence-based medicine with the compassionate, unhurried care you and your family deserve. Today and for many years to come. When it comes to your health, you shouldn't settle for anything less than exceptional. Visit harrisonhealthcare.ca.ca.com.com. slash Toronto. I remember going back to my trailer at the end and just being like, I just sort of knew I was

like, I feel like this is, if this is the end, then I'm really, really fine with that because it just was a nice, I'd been playing her for three years. Yeah. I was about to turn 30. It just sort of felt like this is the right time to say goodbye to her. And I kind of did say goodbye when I was getting changed and I was taking her off her silver. costume, I was like, you know, by mate, this has been so special. And thank you for everything. And I love you. And I'll miss you, but, you know, everything good must come to an end. With thanks to Bailey's,

this is the Women's Prize for Fiction Podcast. Celebrating women's writing, sharing our creativity, our voices and our perspectives, all while championing the very best fiction written by women around the world. I'm Vic Hope and I'm your host for season six of bookshelfy, the podcast that asks women with lives as inspiring as any fiction to share the five books by women that have shaped them. Join me and my incredible guests as we talk about the books you'll be adding to your 2023 reading list. Today I am absolutely thrilled to welcome back to Tanya Reynolds to the podcast. Tanny's perhaps best known, but has seen stealing role as Lily in the Emmy award-winning Netflix show's Sex Education, but has been gracing our screens with

with roles in Outlander, Death in Paradise, and more recently 2020's film adaptation of Jane Austen's Emma, alongside Annie Tanya Joy and Bill Nye. Tanya was named as one of the screen international stars of tomorrow in 2020 and is currently treading the boards at London's Almada Theatre in critically acclaimed play. Amira, welcome to the podcast, Tanya. I love food. Thanks for having me. This is so exciting. That's a great pleasure. I absolutely love you in sex education. I've been addicted to that shout ever since it first hit our screens. Oh, you've just, you're just so, there's something about the way you move your face that I've

never seen before and it's so compelling and it's so brilliant. Looking back, have you always had an interest in expression in, I guess, in this way, via acting or via writing or by reading? I've always been obsessed with acting and, yeah, and reading and anything kind of creative since I was lit tiny for as long as I can remember really. For example, we had like a clown class at drama school. And when I remember when I got to drama school and I found out that we had a class on clowning,

I was really like judgmental event. And I was like, I want to be a proper actor. I don't want to do that. And then the minute I put a fucking red nose on, which is what you have to do, everyone has a red nose. I was like, oh my God, this is. This is great This is home

Like I am clown I am clown And it just like woke up this whole new world So I think that Lily is probably the result of some like Just like deep rooted clown in me That just has been bursting to get out Ever since I was little and just found its way Through sex education

Yeah I am clown You know what though We are all clown deep down We're all clown. It's about unlocking the clown. I'm literally just booked into a flying trapeze class. They have this flying trapeze school in Regents Park called the Gorilla Circus. And you can do like a level one class and they say at the end of level one, you'll be able to catch the feet of the next person trapezing.

Oh my God. Yeah. Oh my God. Just so you know. It's someone who said that I am clown or though. Just so you know. Oh, God. That would be a nightmare.

I would be like, I'm the clumsiest. I'm just like for, I'm. I'm five noodles cellotaped together pretending to be a human being. Like, I couldn't be trusted to catch another person in the air. God no, but that sounds amazing. As five noodles cellotope together as a human being, what sort of books do you gravitate towards? Perfect segue.

Yeah. I think now I really make an effort to read like a mixture. I think when I was younger I kind of would get stuck in genres. And I'd be kind of like a bit like scared of veering away from it. When I was younger, I remember only reading like contemporary fiction and anything that was written, anything that was set in the past. I just was not interested in at all, which is really weird. And then I would read like one book that was like Victorian or whatever.

And then I'd be in this weird Victorian phase. And I would read loads of Victorian literature or whatever. And I kind of would really go through. through phases like that. So now I try to, I try to like mix it up. Like I love reading like all these like Greek mythology retelling books like Sersi and Ariadne and all that kind of stuff. And I could so easily just stay in that rabbit hole of reading like Greek mythology after Greek mythology and then but I try and I'll read one and then I'll go okay, try something totally different. And but and I do just kind of go to, I mean obviously I take recommendations.

from people but I do just I love just going into bookshops and just like when I have a whole afternoon I've got nowhere I need to be and just spending hours like just um browsing and deciding on what to read next based on what I'm seeing like having not heard anything about the book or yeah so I just kind of yeah it's the best feeling it's like I completely share that um and When you get into a genre, you can go into a bookshop and you can have this feeling of, oh, well, if I wanted to stick with this, there would be enough. Like, I would be, I'd be catered for forever. I would also, you know, like to advocate for people writing more books, absolutely.

But if you didn't, there would be enough. It's an amazing thing to just look around and think, I think I'm sorted. Yeah. But then also there is this ability to explore because they're all around you. And you can touch them in that space. It's the most beautiful place in the world, I think, the bookshop. Yeah. I love that feeling.

And when do you do most of your reading? Because presumably if you're reading scripts and for work, where's the crossover? Do you have to take the time out of that? I don't know when I started this routine, but like maybe a year or two ago. But I started to feel a bit overwhelmed that like there were so many books that I wanted to read and there's just not enough time. Yeah. And so I started getting up an hour earlier than I needed to just to sit in my chair and read in the mornings and like have a cup of tea. And it's become such a ritual because it often in the evenings I would like to read before bed, but often I'm just too tired and I can't.

But in the mornings, I find it's really like it really sets me up for the day because if I do an hour or even just like half an hour of reading in the morning, I sort of feel like less begrudging of having to give my time to other things during the day. I sort of feel like, no, I've had my time. I've done some reading and now I'm ready to like to do work or do life or whatever it is. So I read, but obviously I can't some, if I'm working, I can't do that. If I've got a 5am pick up, I'm not getting up at 4 to read. But, you know, if I'm not working, that's kind of what I try and. do so yeah mornings uh my reading time and on the tubes trains um i love a long train journey

and when you take that time in the morning or on the train is it a grounding in reality for you so that you have your own space and time for you do your day or is it an escape for you from the day i think it's it's kind of a bit of both i think i began reading quite obsessively when i was just kind of of struggling in certain environments in terms of like my anxiety was quite bad and like on sets for example I found that if I because sets are you know a really exciting amazing places but like it's really quite stressful especially if you're an anxious person like I am it's it's a hard environment to navigate a lot of the time and I found that um bringing a book to read on set was like the perfect thing to do because it just it kept me focused on something that wasn't the job so I

wasn't getting anxious about what about my scene or whether I was doing a good job or not and I could just yeah be totally focused and it just like yeah it is it's escapism it's focus and it just kind of lowers my blood pressure a bit I think well let's take it back to a book that I'm assuming you read a little while ago, but perhaps had that effect on you, perhaps the impact was, I don't know, more of resonating, as I know the character that is the protagonist of this, but I'd probably relate to some of the things you've just said. The first book-shelping book is Angus Thong's and Full Frontal Snugging by Louise Renison. What impacted this book and Louise Renison have on you when you read it? When did you read it? I was trying to work this out

the other day. I think I must have, because she, there were loads of books. I can't remember how many, like 10 or something. And I remember them coming out when I was a tween, I guess. I think I read the first one when I was maybe like 12, I want to say. And then I kind of read them as I got a bit older until I was maybe 14. I'm not entirely sure, but I think I must have been younger than 13 when I read the first one. And they were just the funniest, like most relatable books for me at that time. I mean, obviously I haven't read them for a long time. So I don't know how, you know, I would hear about them today. But at the time, I just, you know, as an incredibly awkward 12-year-old trying to navigate, you know, growing and, you know, getting boobs and periods and.

school sexual politics of you know crushes and friends and it was so relatable it was so it was like a warm hug i found it just so comforting i found like georgia and her mates were my mates yeah and it was just it was really nice to read about like it was that transition period between reading kind of like books that felt too young and also not quite ready to go into like the Brontes or whatever. It was like this period of like what literature is there for a 12 year old girl who likes to read. And it was that and it was perfect. And it was just great to read like about, oh, it's actually totally normal to feel weird about your body and whatever. And yeah, I just found them hilarious and I love them.

And they were just, they were huge. They were huge. Everyone at school would, they were like gold dust. Everyone would be passing them around talking about them, like being able to talk about it was the gossip. Yeah. It was they were they were such a hot property to have a copy. Yeah. And I just remember you know all the chat about boys and about snogging was so exciting. Yeah. Also deep inside we'd all be going away thinking oh my god I'm thinking that too that and and it was great to have this like outlet and to see it expressed on the page. Yeah. She's obviously Obviously, she's constantly humiliated by her family.

She's always trying to stop attack from attacking her. Neighborhood animals. These books are so funny. That's so funny. You've been praised for your comic timing across many, many roles. Is this something that you learned? Is this something that you learned in clown school? Is this something messed in clown clown?

Is it instinctive to you? I honestly think that it was like, I think reading books like that are probably where my sense of humor came from. I think, I mean, I don't really know. Humour is a interesting thing. I don't know where it comes from or like how it progresses, but surely it develops from like the kind of the stuff that you, the stuff that you digest. And I think reading books like that from such a young age,

I feel like I could probably read them today and still find them hilarious because it is my sense of humour. And I think that it's that those kind of books were what kind of helped shape my sense of humour and also I guess from that age just kind of having this deep desire to just laugh and to not take things too seriously and to find the funny in everything I think also when you you know as a teenage being a teenager was really hard and you know I had struggles with depression like you know and I think that often that is the way when you are, when you do have depression, you're kind of a desperate to laugh at things and to, yeah, to find the funny and the joy and the play and

everything. And I think that that was like a big part of that. I was just about to enter into this phase of feeling very confused and sad, you know, like a lot of teenage girls do and these books were such a source of light and that's what I needed at the time. And I feel like quite a few of the books that we read around that age and younger, because we even thinking about like Jacqueline Wilson, they did depict mental health struggles, but in a way that never labelled them as such. But in many ways, we realised that there were things that we could talk about that perhaps we would be inclined to keep locked up, which was important. What were you like growing up? What sort of a kid where you sort of describe the scene? I think as a young, young kid, I was like, before I became self-aware, I was probably really confident and kind of maybe a bit obnoxious. And like, I just loved showing off. Like, I loved playing and pretending and I was really talkative. And then at whatever age, I just developed, and I think this happens to a lot of particularly girls, but I mean, anyone really, I just.

sort of started to become aware of myself through other people's eyes and self-consciousness began. When I hit kind of secondary school, just suddenly I was like, oh, I'm not, I'm not okay. I don't seem to be like these other girls and everyone seems to be okay and I don't feel okay. I feel like there's something wrong and just really anxious, but without having the word anxious really in my vocabulary, not really knowing what that was and, you know, feeling sad, but really knowing what that was about and I just was a bit weird like I felt I felt weird and out of place and then I became like incredibly yeah self-conscious and shy but totally at home on stage like interesting yeah yeah like drama clubs doing the school plays anything like that was like

was safe that was like a safe haven it was like okay I know what I'm doing if I'm I'm pretending to be someone else. And that's the one thing I know I can do. And it's the only time I didn't feel self-conscious was when I was like pretending to be other people. Yeah. Is that why you decided to pursue a career in acting? Was it the feeling it gave you, the armour almost?

I think so. I think there was never any like debate. Like there was never anything else that I was going to do. It was always going to be acting. And I think that that was because, probably initially when I was very small I think it was just because it was really fun and I was like oh my god you can have a job you can be paid money to like dress up and pretend to be other people that is that sounds like a trick and so that's what it was initially and then I think as

I got older without thinking about it like subconsciously I think it is just like oh this is the most enjoyable thing ever because for so many reasons but also because it's like the most fun I will have is when I'm not being myself when I can be literally anyone else, put me in anyone else's shoes, give me someone else's words to say, yeah, and I think that's the same for a lot of actors. I think it's just like, yeah, like you said, like a kind of armour, almost. It's time to talk about your second book, Shelfy book today now, which is Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. You actually mentioned this book just before you mentioned Emily Bronte. It's one of those authors that maybe you would quite be ready to get into when you were reading Angus Thungs

and Full Friend and Stonking. But now we are, and this is a masterpiece of English literature, combining poetic grandeur with sweeping Merlin settings to tell the wild and doomed love affair between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. It's an unforgettable story of love, hate and retribution, the effects of which reverberate through the succeeding generations. So when did you read this one? I think I was 15 when I first read it and it was, I think it was for school. I think it was for GCSE English Lit. It was the first and actually only book that I have ever read more than once.

I think I've read it maybe like three or four times, which, and I never, you know, I read books that I love, love, love that I become obsessed with and I never reread them. And yet this one, I kind of, a part of that was because I was reading it for school, but it was also because it just completely ignited something in me. It was the most astonishing thing I had ever read. And I think it was because it was properly like moving on from that phase of reading kind of young adult fiction, which is kind of all I'd been reading up to that point. And then reading that was like, whoa, it was like, this is, this is, it was like a whole new world of literature.

And it really ignited like a passion. for Gothic, well, just for the Gothic, but for Gothic literature especially. And also it was like, it was, it was sexy a bit, right? Like, I was, you know, 15 and, you know, 15 and horny and you're just kind of reading about this, like, this intense, passionate love affair that never actually gets to happen. And it was just, it was the most thrilling thing that I had ever read. there was nothing sexier at the age of 15 there was nothing sexier than it feeling so other to your own reality so the fact that it was gothic the fact that it was like this intense passion that never got to be like that was more sexy than the porn that we'd started to see yeah you know that it started to we'd started to get for our computers then because it was so exotic to us yeah yeah it's exactly that yeah exotic it was not it was like nothing that I'd read it was like nothing I'd read it was like nothing I'd experienced or really seen. And it just was, I just felt it all so, so deeply.

And I remember saying to my drama teacher at that time, after I'd read it for the maybe third time, I was like, I've decided I'm going to become a Gothic novelist. Because I was like, this is life. That's what life's about making this kind of thing. It just had such a seismic impact. Yeah, it's weird that because even now, just thinking about it, I could probably reread it. And yet I wouldn't reread.

I just don't really reread books, but I really could just sit down and read that again. And I don't know what that is about some books. You feel like you can just read them over and over again and others you can't, even if you love them. But yeah, I really could go into that again, you know. I always feel like it seems like visiting countries. You know, there's only so much time you've got on.

on this planet. I don't want to do the thing that I've already done before again, whenever there's something new to do. Yeah, yeah. Maybe the experience of reading it again would be still a new experience, you know, because every time you read a book, you might be in a different place for you in your life and it might mean something different, take you to a different place. Yeah. But how's that dream of becoming a Gothic writer going? Just be you in it. Well, I have not, I have not, but you know, I love writing a lot. And I was always writing as a kid because it was always something, like reading books and the acting were like my main sources of comfort when I was younger. And the amount of like novels that I started, you know, age 10.

I remember coming downstairs with a notebook and being like, mum, I have started a novel. And, you know, I can't, am I, if we could, I remember our old computer, like, our bigger, the big, like old, old, old, like, old. proper old computers, the dialogues. Yeah, yeah. The amount, I remember making my mom read so many, like, I was like, my life started a new novel, you read the first chapter and just her sitting down in front of the massive computer reading and being like, yeah, it's very good. I can't imagine how many them in things I'd started that would be existing on that, on that piece of computer. But yeah, I think it's in my future for sure. I feel like, you know, writing that, and they do go ahead and had creating and inhabiting those characters.

He's currently starring in a mirror, of course, at London's on Major Theatre with Johnny Lee Miller and Michael Ward. Can you describe your typical process for preparing for a new role for becoming the character? Well, oh God, I mean, for this play, it's been a really long process, but quite a long rehearsal period, and it's not set in a world that we immediately recognise

in our Western society. So we had to kind of, like, established the rules of this world and how we're going to communicate them to the audience and then who we are inside that world. And for me, the character of May, who I play, is, you know, she's ex-military, which when I first read the play and was first started preparing for it, I was really nervous about the fact that I wouldn't be convincing as someone who is ex-military. And I started doing press-ups every day because I thought that might have. I was like maybe if I had a muscle anywhere in my body.

But yeah, so it was about finding out who she is in terms of like who she was in the army and how who she is outside of the army and how she's affected by what she saw. And yeah, just like figuring out what her physical life would be as someone who has come from that world and is now in this new world. And yeah, just kind of like just a lot of really. reading, rereading, rereading and reading again the play and just asking so many questions about what makes a human being and piecing it all together, really, which is what's so amazing about theatre is you have, you know, five to six weeks to do that, which in film and TV, you kind of don't. I mean, you might do in some cases, but generally you don't. You just kind of just have to do it quite quickly, whereas theatre's amazing that you can spend five weeks kind of sitting in a room.

scratching your head and trying to figure this person out, which is kind of what I did. That's all it felt like I did. And when it comes to the performance, how does filming on set compare with performing in front of a live theatre audience? For me, I feel kind of less anxious on stage 100%, because I just feel so much more in control of my performance and what I'm doing. And also, you're in a rhythm of it. You just are in it from the beginning and you stay in.

it until the end, whereas TV and film, it's obviously all broken up and you're kind of in it and then you're out of it and then you're wait for an hour and then you're back in it. And there's something about being filmed, which is, it just adds a layer of self-consciousness that for some reason and a live audience just, it's not as severe the self-conscious is still there, of course, like I still am nervous and whatever, but it's just not as I can deal with performing live in front of human beings, but there's something about having a camera on you that is so, I don't know if it's because it's close or what,

it's just so exposing in a way that, I mean, it's great in so many ways, but it's just, it's difficult, you know. Yeah. If there are so many more layers between you and the final audience on there and it's never over, whereas when you do it in front of an audience, you're all in that moment, you know if they've enjoyed it or not, you know how they've felt, you know if we've got it.

But once it's done, it's done. Yeah, and you move on. Whereas with TV, there for posterity to be analysed and scrutinised and interpreted in so many different ways. Oh my God, 100%. And especially when you're doing things that are like comical, because, you know, you get the immediate on stage, it's like they're either laughing or they're not. Whereas on camera, it's like, I don't know if this is funny. I guess we'll see. I'll see it. In a year's time after the edit and, oh, yeah, it's a very different beast.

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Hi, I'm Sam Baker and welcome to The Shift, The podcast that aims to tell the no-holds-bar truth about being a woman post-40. I started the shift because I was so tired of the absence of older women's voices. Where had all the women over 40 gone? I mean, seriously, if you want to walk about in your pajamas for the rest of your life, we're invisible. Each episode I speak to an inspiring woman about her shift. I feel very strong and think I genuinely don't care what anybody thinks of me. Join me every Tuesday, wherever you listen to your podcasts.

It is, that's about your third book now. which is a big guy absolutely loved. This is my brilliant friend by Eleanor Francie. I mean, it's loved by so many. A modern masterpiece from one of Italy's most acclaimed authors. My brilliant friend is a rich, intense and generous-hearted story about two friends, Eleanor and Leila. Through the lives of these two women,

Ferranti tells the story of a neighborhood, a city, and a country as it's transformed in ways that in turn also transform the relationship between her two protagonists. And tell us a bit about this, But why did you pick it? I think that I couldn't not pick it. There was a moment where I thought this is really obvious and so many people would have picked this, I think.

And so I was kind of hesitant about it. But then I was like, but I have to because it is, I think there's a reason why it's been so huge for so many people. For me, it just, I think it was about the timing as well of when I read it. this was quite a long time ago, but I'd come out of like a horrible relationship and I had completely lost my sense of self and I was really struggling with like, I don't know, my, it's who I was or what I was doing and it had been just a horrible minute and a friend of mine recommended these books and they were just at the time particularly just exactly what I

need it. I feel like sometimes books come into your life at the right moments and they are just medicine and this was just one of those things. It was a huge part of my recovery from, you know, a not great moment in my 20s. And there was a big part of what was so comforting and exciting about reading them was reading so explicitly about Naples because my dad is Italian and so half my family's Italian and my my my nan shop from Naples but she's from a very small village near Naples and I'd never really read anything about Naples from you know really ever or like and so just to read what it was like for women in that period It just felt like everything about all of the books, like the whole series of them,

were just so, I don't know, just so, they just felt really, really important and special for me in so many ways. And it was really important for me at the time to be reading something about where the core relationship is the relationship between two women who go through everything alongside each other and it's messy and it's difficult. and it's fractured at times, but how important they are to each other. And it was just really important for me to read that at that moment. And it just made me kind of realize the importance and significance of like the friends in your life more than your romantic partners. But those friendships are love.

That is love. It's a love that actually can be taken away from you. Yeah. In the same way that romantic love can come and go. What sort of role to be of our friendship play in your life? I mean, huge. And I think so much more since that period of time because that was, you know, a moment when,

and I think this happens to a lot of people at some point, if you're in a romantic relationship, that suddenly just like, usually because it's not really working, you put all of your energy and attention into that. and you kind of neglect, as I did, I just completely neglected myself and anything that would nourish me and including friendships. And coming out of that was like, oh, like, I just need friends. I just need my people around me. And it is that, you know, it takes a village to raise a kid.

Like I think it really does take a village to raise a human being. And I just in the last couple of years particularly have just realized how important my friendships are with, I mean, well, my friendships are, but particularly with, you know, the women in my life. Yeah. It's just, yeah, we are constantly holding each other up. And I just don't know what would be the point without them, you know, what I would do. It's one of those things we know deep down We sometimes forget And we have these little reminders in our lives

And often awful things that come and jolt us And remind us that of what is important Friendship of course being such a huge theme In sex education Your character was just such a fan favourite I love Nelly Was it hard saying goodbye to her I mean do you know

I of course like I loved her so much I love the show But I also it really felt like it was the right time. Like even the last, the last scene that I shot was her last scene of season three. Yeah. And I just remember the day being like, we was a night shoot and it was me and Trish. I was dressed like Glynoxi looking like all in silver. And it was just such a beautiful night and we had such a nice time. And I remember going back to my trailer at the end and just being like, I just sort of knew I was like, I feel like this is, if this is the end, then I'm really, really fine with that because it just was a nice, I'd been playing her for three years.

Yeah. I was about to turn 30. It just sort of felt like this is the right time to say goodbye to her. And I kind of did say goodbye when I was getting changed and I was taking out of her silver costume. I was like, you know, bye, mate. This has been so special. And thank you for everything. and I love you and I'll miss you but you know everything good must come to an end yeah it feels

quite ceremonial like it kind of was like very beautiful yeah moment to say bye mate yeah we'll say bye mate to to that book now move on to book number four which is quiet by susan cane this sunday times bestseller aims to permanently change how we see introverts and also how you see yourself so cane shows how the chemistry of introverts and extroverts differs and how society misunderstands and undervalues introverts she gives introverts the tools they need to better understand themselves and take full advantage of their strengths so this is a book all about power of the introvert would you say you're more of an introvert than extroverts yeah 100 100% like oh god yeah and i actually read this when i think it was like just after the first

season of sex education had come out and I was feeling like and I had felt it for a long time like I felt it at university and at drama school which is this feeling of like I'm wrong for being quiet I'm wrong like being quiet is a bad thing and being shy is a bad thing and especially in this industry I need to learn how to not be this and to be something else and when the when sex education first came out and suddenly, you know, everyone's kind of looking at you and you get invited to parties and, you know, I suddenly was like, oh, okay, this is, okay, I have to stop being everything that I am and I have to learn how to do this, to do this world. I have to go to parties and I have to make friends with lots of famous people and I have to post loads of stuff

on social media and I have to basically become a totally different person. I felt like I couldn't do that as myself as such a quiet introverted person because everything in my body, my reflex in those kind of moments is to just retreat. And when it feels like, it feels like that, like everyone's looking at you. I don't want to go into that. I don't want to go into the storm. I kind of want to just sit at home alone and do a puzzle. I don't want to go like to the parties.

Those are environments that I just, I really struggle in. And I had struggled in, you know, in so many environments, particularly if there's, if there's one industry, that is geared up to extroverts. It is the entertainment industry. And ever since kind of drama school, I'd really struggled with like just my personality, just feeling like it wasn't right for the industry that I wanted to be in because it felt like, no, you have to be louder and you have to be,

you've got to be more confident and you've got to be this and you've got to be that. And I'm not any of those things. So how do I become them? And my life was just a series of like trying to be louder and failing, just constantly failing at it. And then I read this fucking book, which just changed my world. It was the first time I'd read something that was like, do you know what? This world is catered to extroverted people, but there is so much power and strength in being an introvert.

And here are all the reasons why actually being an introvert is in certain cases preferable. and here are all of the strengths that typically introverted people have because of the fact that they're introverted. And, you know, one of the things that she looks at a lot is the correlation between introversion and sensitivity. And because often if you're introverted, you kind of get overstimulated by particular environments. And it's why you often retreat into yourself because,

it's a lot and also you'll be more self-conscious and she talks about how that is actually a strength because it means that you're usually you're more aware of how other people might be finding certain situations you're generally just more sensitive to not only your own emotions and environments but also to other people and how other people might be finding things and it's just so interesting. I could talk about it for hours, but yeah, she talks a lot about like how to raise quiet children in a world where, where you can't hear them. And how often we think that extroverted people make better leaders, but actually she makes so many arguments for how introverted people actually are great leaders, but you just might not know because they're not loud about it. And it just

was the most important book for me because it just was the first time that I was like, oh, actually, I'm okay, I don't need to change. I can just be myself and this is just who I am and that's fine. And it's okay that I want to retreat from the spotlight rather than run into it. That's actually, that's fine. There's something so powerful. I think we live in a society that so often encourages us to change. Whatever it is that we are, however it is that we are encouraged to be different to that.

But in fact, we can lean into these characteristics that are ours. authentically and organically and embrace our own introversion and you're so right you're often think in entertainment that you're supposed to be loud being loud doesn't mean you're saying anything in particular doesn't make you any less good at your job and it's important to spread that message for more people to know that and also for yourself to feel your own power and to harness it and to feel comfortable in your own skin i read in an interview actually that you said your 20s were 10 years of anxiety why do you think that was and how things changed into your 30s or is it just that you've learned to accept yourself

more? I think that is a big part of it. I feel like a lot of my 20s was thinking, thinking in terms of what I should be doing and how I should be behaving just literally everything, what I should be wearing, what I should, should, should, should, should, should. And a lot of it was trying to, I mean, I feel like everybody's 20s, you're trying to figure out who you are. And, and, you're, you're And even though all of the signs are pointing to this human being that you are, you try, well, I try to kind of reject that. And I was like, no, that's not good enough. I mean, I think it is a weird space when you, especially in the entertainment industry where you like, I love, I love my job so much. I can't believe I get to do it.

It's mad. And people find it really hard to marry the idea that you're. you'd love to be on stage in front of hundreds of people or you love to be in a TV show that is watched by millions of people and yet you struggle to be in, you know, at a party or like on a crowded tube or, you know, you struggle to sometimes just like string sentences together to a stranger or whatever. And I think that I just, my 20s were just a lot of like,

if I want to be in this world, I have to be something else. And it was just a lot of trying to be that thing. And a lot of realizing that's just not me. I can't do it. And now in my 30s, I'm just, I mean, I'm at the early end of it. But I feel like already, I just feel a bit more settled and a bit more like, I just, I've lost that kind of like, or I'm not completely.

I'm still working on. I'm not working progress as we all are. But I feel like I'm losing that should, that I should be doing this. And I'm more like, no, what do I want to do? Yeah. You know? And that's...

Even a bit of time to work out what you like. Like what you want to do? For ages just didn't know. Yeah. Now I'm like, oh, I know what I want to do. And I'll just do that then. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing.

Yeah. Yes. It's very simple when we take out all of the extra guff in our brains and just go, hang on. What do we want? Oh yeah, that. Great. Just do that. Tanya, your fifth book, Shelby book, today is everyone in this room will someday be dead by Emily Austin.

In summary, Gilda is a 20-something atheist, animal-loving lesbian cannot stop ruminating about death. Desperate for relief from her panicky mind, she responds to a flyer for free therapy at a local Catholic church and finds itself being greeted by Father Jeff, who assumes she's there for a job interview. Too embarrassed to correct him, Gilda is abruptly hired to replace the recently deceased receptionist Grace and soon finds herself obsessed with her predecessor's mysterious death.

Tell us a bit about this book. So I think I read this last year. So I have like really bad health anxiety, like really bad and quite bad death anxiety, which feels like a weird thing to say because surely everyone's a bit anxious about death. But, you know, and so I really avoid, or I try to avoid reading or watching anything where people get ill or die. I just, it kind of depends on the space I'm in. But generally, if I, there are so many books I get recommended that I just cannot go anywhere near because I know that someone in it gets an illness and dies. and I just, I just can't with death.

I can't. And then last year I was in this space where I was like, I need to start tackling this anxiety. This is ridiculous because, you know, death is the one certainty in life and illness is also pretty, pretty certain as well. Like we've just, I've got to, I've got to grow up and deal with this. So I started kind of picking up books that initially I would,

I would not. They dealt with subjects that I find uncomfortable. And one day I was in a bookshop. And I saw just the title of this book, which in itself just was like so triggering. But I was like, okay, I feel like I have to read this. Even though the title makes me want to run away, I'm going to read it. And not only is it so funny and so brilliantly written, it was so relatable in so many ways.

I mean, mostly because it was actually the first time that I'd read someone having these kind of intrusive fears about death and health anxiety in a way that I've just not really, I honestly haven't read anything like it. And it was amazing. You know, when you read something and you're like, oh my God, have you stolen this from me? You saw this from my brain. Yeah. I think it been in my head. It honestly felt like that. And it was just, I just found that really, rather than making me, you know, terrified and want to retreat, it just was really comforting to know, oh, this is like, other people feel this way as well and it's okay.

And actually it can be quite funny. This is funny. And it was, it was nice to read about something that. is a huge part of my anxiety and laugh at it. And yeah, it was just a really special moment, actually. It will happen to us all. And you're right that there is humor to be found in that, which is so freeing.

This book deals with the humans struggle with existence, because to exist does mean to die. And it beautifully captures how isolating that can be when we start to think about it. Is that something that resonated with you at all? Just the fact that you think about it at all can make you feel a little bit alone. And like you said, when you see someone put it on pages of the book, you feel less alone because you have someone else thinking it. Yeah, totally. Like the intrusive thoughts about, you know, sometimes I'll be just walking down the street and I'll be like, what if I just like tripped and then lent slightly to my right

and the bus came by and like beheaded me or like, you know, it's that thing of standing at the platform of the tube and being like, oh my God, what if I just, what if I just slipped? What if I just slipped as the tube is coming? But it's so loud in your brain. I recently, I broke my foot a couple of months ago and just from walking down some stairs. And when I did that, afterwards for a really long time,

I would just be like, I find myself literally kind of like, flinching because I would just be thinking like oh my god if I just took one step I could crack my ankle again or if I if that person just like made one wrong move they could fall off that bridge or they could do or whether and I just had so many really disruptive intrusive thoughts about like injury and and death and that's why this book was so has been a bit of like a it's probably actually one I'm probably going to read again because she talks about that exact thing with, you know, humor and lightness. Yeah. But also, you know, taking it very seriously.

And it is just, yeah, it's really comforting to know I'm not insane. I'm not like, this is actually probably quite normal. And it's just really nice when someone can write about it so eloquently and so truthfully. It's just that is what makes a really special and important book. for an individual is just when they feel like their thoughts are on someone else's pages. It sort of validates them. Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Danny, what's next for you? Obviously, you're in a mirror at the moment. It's a sell out. Sex education has come to an end, but what happens next? So next, I think, I've just finished. So I actually broke my foot in Italy where I was filming this new limited series for Netflix called The DeCamron, which I think will be out next year. I guess. I don't know when, but that's coming out at some point. And that was the most joyful

experience. Footbreaking aside, it was the best time. So yeah, that's, I guess, the next big thing that's out. And then, yeah, we'll see what else the future bring? I'm quite interested to know the answer to this final question just because there's a couple of books that you said, even though you don't end to read books more than once you've actually said you would so if you did have to choose and all your books is very different as well if you did have to choose one book

from your list as a favourite which would it be and why oh my god they all do very different things for you but it sounds as well so it sort of depends what you need right now oh I think it might I think it would be either

my brilliant friend or Wuthering Heights because of the, if I could only read one book forever, it would probably be one of those because there's so much in them. You're completely taken to another world and they're so, like, visceral and there's so many characters. And probably when you, the more you reread them,

the more you discover and they'll just come alive more and more with every read. So maybe one of those. I feel like they're the two most, sort of sumptuous, like, delicious ones. Yeah. But we'll just keep filling you up more and more. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Oh, okay. Well, I will accept. Is this sort of double-in? I'll accept them both. You can have them back. Thanks. Tanya, thank you so, so much for chatting to me. I've really, really enjoyed it.

I've enjoyed getting to know you a little bit better through the books that you love. I feel like we really get a sense of who you are and exploring. Oh, thank you so. Well, thanks so much for having me. This has been really fun. I'm Vic Hope and you've been listening to the Women's Prize for Fiction podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Bayleys and produced by Birdline Media. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you next time.