Girl on Guy with Aisha Tyler - girl on guy 216: marianne jean-baptiste

Episode Date: June 27, 2016

join marianne jean-baptiste of blindspot, broadchurch and without a trace and aisha as they dissect consuming your work, finding your voice, living your character, making it up as you go along, and emerging from the wilderness. plus marianne and aisha fall for los angeles. reluctantly. girl on guy is finally an LA woman.

Today's show is brought to in part by Audible, who has more than 180,000 audiobooks and spoken word audio products. Get a free 30-day trial at audible.com slash girl on guy. This is Girl on Guy. Hey, everybody, welcome to Girl on Guy 216. Welcome to the show. I know these shows come a lot farther and fewer than you may be accustomed to, especially if you're a long-time girl-on-guy listener. So I just want to thank you for continuing to listen to the show. If you've converted to premium status, welcome and thank you if you've upgraded.

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This episode, everyone, is with Marianne Jean-Baptiste. And I said it that way because I am a fancy fucker. She is pretty much one of the coolest people that I've ever interacted with. She's an actress, a singer-songwriter, composer, and director who burst onto the international scene. I'm sorry that I sound like a reporter on an entertainment show, but it's true. For a role as Hortense Cumberbatch in the film Secrets and Lies, for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. You may know her also as Vivian Johnson on the long-winning American television series without a trace,

and in the show Broad Church that she stars in, and also in the show Blindspot, which is a very popular show, and she was just in the first season of that show on NBC. So she's a pretty special person and funny and brilliant and no nonsense. I mean, no bullshit. Let me be no bullshit. She's no bullshit. I just, I find her dazzling to be around and to listen to.

And I also just admire her intensely because I feel like, I don't know. I just, I don't know. You ever meet somebody you just want to be them when you grow up? She's one of those people. You know, she's just funny and she cuts through the bullshit and she's incredibly talented. And her theatrical background is deep and rich and intense. And, you know, I just think she's just a dazzling person and a dazzling talent. And she is here on Girl on Guy for you right now.

So I can't not wait for you to listen to it. It's going to be spectacular. Ready your earballs for this show. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Girl on Guy 216 with the actress, director, composer, and all around, I don't know, Supernova. Marianne Jean-Baptiste coming at you straight out of the girl and guy bunker

and right into your face. I hope I'm going to say, I'm going to give you your name the proper French pronunciation and then you can, but Marianne Jean-Baptiste. Welcome to my show. Thank you.

Merci. No, it's about you. Now, but you, you, we're going to start at the beginning because you have such a beautiful name, it's a French name, but you're obviously British. Yes.

And so, So you were born, where were you born? I was born in London. Okay. Southeast London. St. Giles Hospital. Yeah. So I'm a very city kid.

Tell me, okay, for people who don't know the nuances of kind of the landscape of London, I always feel like when you mention a neighborhood in a big city like that, it says something very specific. So what is Southeast London like? Southeast London. Well, we have a big rival with North London. Okay. And, you know, we always say we come from the sunny side.

They're from the north. And you just have to say. speak to somebody and ask them where they're from. If they say they're from South London, they'll say, I'll come from South. Okay, Saf. We say South. That's what is, the South London Massives.

But, you know, I mean, it's huge because you've got Brixton, Dulwich, Peckham, New Cross. I mean, it just spreads out. It's a huge city. Yeah, Battersea. Yeah. And you have, like, you're, and I'm not like an accent affiionado, but there, is that, is the, is the, is the, is the, is the,

turning into the F specific to South London. It most certainly is. Okay. It's the London that Don Cheadle did in the infamous. Did he do it well? I wonder. How was Don Cheadle's accent in Ocean's 12? It wasn't a South London.

No, it wasn't, okay. But I think he was going for East. I think he was kind of going for the cockney within Bow Bells, which is quite different again. Yeah. Obviously, we pick up all the nuances coming from there, but here it probably all sounds like, you know, they all talk a bit like that.

Right, right, right. I mean, I think an American, if they heard like a whatever, you would deem like a proper British accent or a proper, like a high London accent, they could differentiate that from something, like a Cochney accent. But no, I mean, the subtleties are utterly lost on us. Yeah, I mean, it's like Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn.

Right. Right. And I think someone from here wouldn't be able to tell those things apart either. You'd have to be from New York to tell Queens and the Bronx apart from Brooklyn accent. When you, and your parents were from, they migrated. Okay. What island?

My father was half St. Lucian, half French. My mother's from Antigua. Oh, okay. And so they met in London. They met in London. You know, we definitely don't have a lot of, I think, like a big Caribbean community here in L.A. Like, there's a big one in New York. And I imagine there was a big one, or is a big one in London.

Yeah. But it's funny because I think, again, like somebody who wasn't from the Caribbean would not, not differentiate between the islands, but I imagine the cultures are very, very distinct. Very different, very distinct. I mean, the one that everybody, you know, talks about and knows and is quite familiar is Jamaica. And it's one of the biggest islands in the Caribbean. But, I mean, you've got Nivas, you've got St. Lucia, you've got Grenada, you've got Barbados, and each of them have different accents. Right, right. In St. Lucia and Dominica, they speak Pato, and French.

So it's very different. I mean, they share some similarities, but the food, you know, the kind of music that they're into in St. Lucia. Now, I'd actually like to do a story about it one of these days. They're heavily into country music. Oh, I love it. Which is hilarious.

That is hilarious. I visited the Dominican Republic, which shares, you know, shares this island. Yeah, with Haiti. And it's amazing how they're on the same island and their cultures are so different. And also how, you know, I mean, again, to a black person from America,

everybody just look like a black person, but, like, they see each other so, so differently. And, of course, if you're Dominican, you would say you could look at Haitian, but whatever, without ever hearing them speak and just, oh, that person's Haitian or their, yeah, you know, I'm like, I look like black folks to me. But I was, which just as my own, like, you know,

American, like, lack of understanding. But did, I guess, whenever people migrate to a new place, they tend to cling to each other, and those differences start to fall away. So did, like, and your parents were obviously from two different islands, but they came together. And I wondered, does the community there, did the community there start to blend just because of need?

Yeah, they do. The Caribbean communities blended very well. And again, I was just speaking to somebody about it yesterday with the Irish, because when they went over in the 50s, there would be these signs on the door saying, no dogs, no blacks, and no Irish. And so I always tease my Irish friends are saying, remember you were at the bottom of the list.

You know, we were one above you. You were right at the bottom. I need to get one of those sides for a few of my friends. So, so funny. So there was a lot of mixture with the Irish community as well. Which is funny for Jamaicans in particular

because some of the accent, the Jamaican accent, has its roots in the Irish accent. Right. Interesting. So that's a very interesting combination. And a lot of Jamaicans married Irish. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Oh, I need to learn more things. When you were growing up, what was your sense of yourself? Like, what culture did you feel closest to? Probably Caribbean, I say, growing up. Although we went to school and we played with whoever was in the neighborhood. there was this, you know, we ate Caribbean food. We sort of like the parties that we went, we listened to Calypso and some reggae and, you know.

So it was very heavily sort of like influential in my growing up. Yeah, I'd say, yeah, Caribbean. I don't know if I'm going to articulate this properly, but I always want to, ever have someone on the show who's like a first generation, you know what I mean? like their parents were migrants. Yeah. You know, there's always this conflict between who you are at home.

We're not conflict, not in a negative way, but a difference, a dichotomy between who you are at home with your family and who you are at school. And a lot of times those first-generation kids are struggling to be more of the place that they are then. Right. Rather than, you know, you know, like, you know, your parents are Korean and they don't speak English and you come here and you just want to be an American kid. You want to kind of fit in.

Did you feel that way at all? Did you feel that pressure? Not really, because I mean, we speak, I think it's a language thing as well because we spoke English. Right, right, exactly. My dad would speak French or patois, but predominantly English was spoken. So we weren't going to schools with accents or anything like that. And my mom would say, my mom would in her Caribbean accents, say, talk properly. So we'd be like, shall we say that like you said it or shall we say how everyone else does?

But it was always that thing of, you know, know, you're here, embrace the culture that you're in, and, you know, you'll advance that way you'll get through, which I think becomes a problem for people when they're much older, because you're suddenly being given a title of Black, British, and you kind of go, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, like, wait a minute, what? I'm African Caribbean, hang on a minute, I was born here, do you know what I mean? I didn't go to the Caribbean until I was about six. Right.

So, yeah. And in some ways, those titles which people use to, you know, I don't know, dance around sometimes, soft and sometimes nuance sometimes. Like, you know, like the term African American, right? I get why people, I get it, I get why people use it and I respect it. But I mean, Charlize Theron is African American. There's a little girl at school. It's so funny. My daughter, I think she was my younger.

I think she was about in fifth grade and that's when they start to do their first sort of standardized tests and they have to write where they come from on it. So her best friend at the time, Madison, whose mother is South African and whose father is

American writes African American. And Leila writes other. Oh wow. So the teacher's sort of going, oh no, no, no, no, it's wrong. And they're arguing like, well, no. No. It's not. I'm other, because I'm not African-American,

and she's African-American. Exactly. She actually is, you know? Yeah. I mean, you know, these labels a lot of times, they're just, like, I get even, even who, I don't even know who came up with that term, you know, it was kind of in the 70s or the 80s

to replace the term black, you know. Which I feel comfortable with, to be right? I use it all the time. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've actually done interviews where, you know, the poor, you know, the poor. interviewer has said, you know, and as an African-American, and I'm sort of like, I'm not African-American,

to be quite honest with you, you know. I mean, and in your particular case, neither of those terms, because you're, I mean, your family, what, all of our, genetically, we're all African, you know, but, you know, your family, been in the Caribbean for however many hundreds of years, however many generations. So the most specific would be, I mean, Caribbean, British, but like. Yeah, but nobody says Hungarian-American or only. That's so true. Yeah.

You know. Yeah. They don't. Just American. Yeah. It's just American. Yeah. I'll take that.

Yeah, I'll take it. It's true. It's an accurate description. When you were growing up, since your mom was focused on academics, how many siblings do you have? I have two left. I had an older brother who passed away. No. Years ago.

Okay. Yeah, 18 years ago. Oh, wow. When you were growing up, were you an honest. arts, you kid. Like, what was the focus of your life? What was really interesting is at about the age of seven or eight, I had this fabulous English teacher. And I think she was in a folk band with another English teacher from another year. And they used to play the guitar.

Adorable. And get us to sing songs and do all that sort of stuff. And she got me into dance. She said there's this little dance program that you should go to and my mum and dad both of them worked so it was like she'd take me home on a Friday evening with her after school give me something to eat and then take me to this dance class and I'd do this sort of being trees and you know it was contemporary

and I suppose that was my first taste of the arts other than being in school plays and so on my dad played various instruments and so there was always music in the house but I wanted to be a barrister for a very long time I was wanting to I used to watch a show called Crown Court which was based on sort of like real cases yeah and I was like I'd love to do that and so for years that's what I was going to do but I always did a bit of drama on the side or music singing you know and so So I think by the time I left school on the promise of taking a gap year and then going to study law, I sort of thought, well, I need to get a job. As if I can get into a play or something.

I went on tour with a band called Flesh Mesh Yum Yum. What kind of music? We missed that on the punk era. I was going to see, it sounds punk. The name is very punk. We were too young for punk, but we were into punk and funk. I mean, it was horrible. I love it, though.

It's so great. But we had a. great time on a nasty bus touring around Europe. And I thought, right, I'm going to apply for drama school. I think I'm going to try and go for that. I remember telling my dad thinking he'd be mortified and he just said, do whatever you want to do, but make sure you do it well. Oh, that's lovely. It's like, okay then. God, that's really lovely. Was that, was that shocking to you? It was, it was a relief, but it was so heartbreaking that I felt like going to uni and doing law. Right, right, right, just because he'd been so selfless about it.

Right, right. It was like just making you feel worse about it, right? It would have been easy if you could have fought a bit. And I think my mom stopped asking me when I was going to get a proper job about 10 years ago. Mm-hmm. Yeah, she's still sort of like, far after the Oscar-dominated thing. Yeah, she said, oh, dear. Oh, dear.

Why are you going to get a proper job? I'm doing all right. I'm doing all right. I know. Oh, my God. And then you apply to... I applied to Rada when I got in. Oh, fabulous.

Went off and did that. Rada's in London, right? Rada's like the NYU. I mean, I'm trying to think, well, because, or the Juilliard. It's probably the Juilliard. Julia is the Rada. There we go. That's an utterly fair.

Yes, Juilliard is the Rada of the United States. What was that experience like for you? It was great. I think I had a good time. My parents earned too much for me to get a full grant. but not enough to pay. Right, to pay for it.

To pay for it. So basically, I worked all the way through, which I think saved me immensely. Saved you. Because I felt like I was paying to go there. Right. So I was like, I'm going to learn this, I'm going to get that. No, let's meet afterwards to work on that speech.

Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to party all night and miss a class. Well, I couldn't. I was in the Empire Leicester Square, ushering people to their seats. Oh, wow. Wow. Yeah. So I think that saved me because otherwise I'd have just... Well, do what most kids do in college, yeah, which is kind of half-asset until the end and then

wish you tried harder. You know, yeah. Like I remember waking up when I made my senior year and I was like, ugh, I should have been paying more attention. I mean, it was fun. You know what I mean? But yeah, yeah, your sense of, God, the urgency of that and the kind of importance of it must have been so much just more apparent to you, right? Because you're like, you know, I know exactly what this is costing me. Yeah. Not just literally, but personally,

existentially, my energy, everything. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And you were working in the movie theater?

Yeah. It's adorable. I saw planes, trains, and automobiles probably about 506 times. I've only gone to London really as an adult. Like I went once as a college student,

but I don't remember it, but I've been like recently. I don't know. You know, whenever you go to a place and you're not of it, it seems so magical to you. Did it seem like a You grow up there.

Yeah. Some parts of it, because it's funny, you grow up in South London, for example, and you get to the age whereby you venture into town, which is the West End. And so, you know, first of all, you go with your parents, and they take you up town, and you go to John Lewis's or Debenhams or Selfridges, and it's this big, exciting world.

And then you get of the age to go there yourself, and it's like, ugh. And then you kind of go, oh, Camden Town. Venture over there. So, I mean, there were periods of excitement in discovering new parts of London. When you graduated from, when you were in, because a lot of this was a discovery for you,

like, oh, I think I'm going to do a play and I think I'm going to, you know, apply to theater school. Did you have a sense, when you were there, what kind of an act? or you wanted to be, what kind of a career you wanted to pursue? That's a difficult one, because I think that when you go to an institution like that, they're very much into trying to mold, or they tell you what you are, or rather what you're not. And is that this is what, because of what your, look, your ability or whatever,

this is the space that you should occupy? Yes. Or this is your set of abilities? You could occupy. Okay. Okay. So for me, I've always looked at it, and there's a pattern. My disadvantage is always work out. out to be advantages because, you know, it was sort of like this little force from South London

who, you know, they didn't quite know what to do with me. So it was like I got interesting roles. Like I got puck in Samanite Street because I wasn't going to be one of the lovers, Hermia or Helena. I played a king foas in a Greek tragedy. So it all. So it all. All the time, I just kept getting these really, it's almost like they didn't know what to do with you. Didn't know what to do with you, yeah. So I kind of, they would be like, oh, who could play that old mother in that? Give it to her because, you know, there's some weight.

So maybe she'll be able to carry that off. So I was, I don't think I ever yearned for the kind of, you know, love interest, girlfriend, you know, objective beauty type character. I was, you know, the witch was always a bit more. interesting, you know, or the psycho. But it's, I mean, I think that's really interesting, like an interesting way to think about this business generally. And like, you know, when you look at someone like you who's just had this kind of ongoing

success and you were an actor when you were younger and I heard that too, like, we just don't know what to do with you. You know, I'm like twice as tall as everybody around me and, you know, you know, And as, you know, even doing comedy, like, people really want a kind of a deaf comedy jam comic, and I wasn't that kind of comic. And people are like, you don't fit in any of the slots that we've created or imagined for you. That, like you said, it does become this advantage because you kind of become an outlier, right? You can almost do anything. And then in this business, there's a party that has to realize, well, I'm not going to ever pursue.

I'm never going to be Spider-Man's girlfriend. So I'm going to stop lamenting it, right? or if lamenting it is even a pursuit and know that there's all these other things that I can do and kind of tell people, since they can't figure out on there, I'm going to tell people who I am, I'm going to tell people what I can do. Did that, I mean, did that become apparent to you early on in your career? Yeah, it did.

I mean, what was really good as well is, in my last year at drama school, you get to do these plays and they invite agents to come in and casting directors and all that. And the principal came to me and said, would like you to write something because we know that you write as well. So, and you do music and you sing and it would be great if you could just write yourself a one woman piece. And that also means that you've got something that you can use when you leave.

Yeah. Put it on here or there or the other. And so I had that opportunity, which was really good. Yeah. And invaluable because it kind of said, okay, they can't fit me in a box. I'll make one. Right, right, right. Which is such a different level.

of power for an artist, especially in a business where we're constantly like, please put me in this thing, please hire me for this, please cast me, to be in a position to create things for yourself. You're operating on a different level than most sectors. Yeah. Where did that kind of polymathy come from where you were writing and doing music? Was this just if you're pursuing on your own that you loved? Yeah, it was something that, because they'd remembered that my audition piece,

I could find a piece. You know, you had to do a classical piece and a modern. piece and there wasn't anything that kind of really got me so I wrote a fabulous monologue yeah and I performed that and I remember sort of they were saying what pieces are you going to do for us saying I'm going to do uh I think it was Queen Margaret from King Henry V for two and blah blah blah by Marianne by up she used fabulous oh I mean the cheek I know the balls I might balls were giant enormous. It really was because people had told me that I would never get in.

No, there's no way. Like, what are you thinking? I went, fuck it then. Right? Why not then? Yeah. Oh, that's just so delicious. Now, I wouldn't dream of it did. I mean, like, ha ha. But you had nothing to lose, really, right? I know there had to be, half of them

going, well, I mean, seriously, the nuts on this one. Yeah. I mean, just to go and with a serious face, go, and then a piece of my own creation. Yeah, I bounced in in on them. Your feet didn't reach the floor. So you wrote the piece that you performed when you graduated. Yeah.

And then what was, you know, I'm always so curious about what everybody's kind of first step in the real world is. Well, I got an agent who was really great. He did something. I don't think that I'll ever have another agent like that, to be quite honest. We since parted company just because Life changes and your needs change Moving in a different direction And he just wasn't there yet

To handle it But one of the first meetings we had He says to me, okay Excuse me, I knew that sparkling water was gonna come up We predicted it, it's all right So he said, write a list of all the people You want to work with Wow

And so I said, okay, you guys look, it doesn't have to be looked Let's start with three people And I wrote their names down He said, okay, give it to me. And he put it in his drawer. He shut it. And we just talked about work on what sort of work I was interested in doing.

And, you know, he talked a bit about television because in England, television is so small compared to it. Even today. Even today. Where there are all these hit shows that we know. I'm always trying to get people to watch shows. I love like, oh, the fall, you have to watch the fall. And I'm like, you can get up with it.

There's only six episodes a season. But that's, I mean, I love that. I went back and did broad shows. a couple of years ago, and you do eight episodes. But boy, do you do those episodes. You take your time. You know, you build the character, you collaborate with the writers. It's just a different experience, yeah, and process.

And I think it shows. Right, right. And there is a richness. I mean, right, it's like instead of it being like we've got to fill 13 hours or 22 hours of television, there's just as impossible to make 22 hours of create anything. I mean, just, you know, it's just so rarely done. Yeah. You have four, what's the one that Idris Elba just did?

Four episodes of, of Luther. You know, four episodes, where are the rest? But, you know, you can really imbue those four episodes with an incredible value. So you were saying, before I got all excited about things, that you were going to move into TV, but it was very small. Yeah, it was very small. And it was, I mean, that's what you, everybody's sort of like, oh, I'd love to do a job on TV, blah, blah, blah. Well, that didn't come. I spent years doing theatre, which I absolutely love.

I mean, if I could just do theatre, I probably would, but I wouldn't eat very much. So I just sort of, you learn, that's when you start learning, actually, when you come out and you start sort of putting that stuff into practice. Right. Remembering about centering your voice and all that good stuff. And I did that for years. I think I got two little TV.

things and then I was asked to go in to meet Mike Lee for a film and that I found very exciting because I loved his work for me

so I auditioned for him and it was for what became naked God that movie's so insane I'm using the word insane as like the highest of compliments like I just I just remember seeing that and just like, God, having like, even now, thinking back, and like,

like, it just like rattled me for as a, just as a viewer, but then as an actor, like, oh my God. Yeah. Incredible. So I went up to see him for that and auditioned for him, if you call it, that. What was that process like? Was it an audition?

Well, that process is, you know, you, we, it was kind of a space very much like this with a television, sofa, newspapers, something to make to you. coffee with and basically he says, I just want you to think of a character, be that character in that space. Oh my God.

So I sat and read a newspaper for about an hour, made a cup of tea, and that was that. Really? Yeah. No, and said nothing. Oh, word. Because you wouldn't. Alone in a space? No, you wouldn't.

It would be manufactured, wouldn't it? God, that's so fucking interesting. It's really interesting. Wait, but no, okay, no, you don't get to go on. Tell me what you were feeling Were you tear? It's not that I don't feel like I could do it But just thinking about it is very frightening to me

Just that kind of that silence And really persisting I mean you would really But yeah And also knowing that he's in the room Not one to kind of look to him for approval As well, you know, they're queer You know they were there

And it's that thing of sort of like Fuck him Right, yeah Just read the paper Been here for a while Have a cup of tea Oh, God. And did you...

Was there any fear intimidation, like, kind of internally or no? There was excitement, I'd say. Yeah. I think he made me... The fear wasn't there because he was very nice. Yeah, yeah. I'm very sort of like, look, it's fine, just be whatever comes.

Yeah. Just be in the space and stuff like that. And I think because we're similar in the stuff that we like that I was fine. I mean, I could have been into something else because I think a lot of people think that they've got

to be very quirky to do something. Do something for Mike Lee, but I think that's really looking at his work on the surface as opposed to really digging deep into what happens with some of those characters. So that was so funny.

And then I got this, my agent's said, oh, it's not going to work out. And I was like, fuck! And then I got this beautiful letter for him from Mike saying, it's not going to work out this time. But I'm definitely going to work with you in the future. So I was like, yeah, fuck.

And then I got a call out of the blue for a play. And he hadn't done a play for 10 years. And so he was going to do this play, and he wanted me to go in and do it. And then I was like, yes. Yeah. So then that started the relationship. And of course, after that, we did Secrets and Lies together.

And then after that, we worked together on career goals, on the music. So, you know. Wow. What was the play? It was called It's a Great Big Shame. Oh, fabulous. What was it about? It took place in the 1800s and the 1900s.

So, no, it didn't take place in the 1900s. It took place in like 1993. Oh, okay. And basically it was about the same house in a hundred years. And there was a haunting. A woman had murdered her husband. And in the second half, it was, you know, in 1993, this woman was having problems with her husband,

and she ends up strangling him. Oh, wow. In the same way. Ooh, fabulous. It was. It was a really delicious story to tell. So Secrets and Lies was the movie that kind of changed. Was it, was it the movie that changed your career?

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Because he'd been for the most part of the theater actor up to that point. And then that was such a sensation that movie. It was. It was crazy, actually. It was a sensation. It was a sensation. It was a sensation, I think.

I just remember it had making such a splash. And then, you know, it had gotten all these different nominate of that. BAFTA and Oscar and all these different nominations. And I think I remember at the time people talking a lot about, and it was a while ago, so I might get this wrong, that the movie was improvised, like a substantial amount of it was improvised. And okay, and that that was like just unheard of.

Like, oh, okay, it's experimental and that's interesting, but for it to be experimental and this good and get nominated, you know, in a field, well, it's not that writers are treated that wonderfully, But, you know, they're revered on some level, and these screenplays are being nominated, and this was something where, in a lot of ways, the actors had all of this creative power and input. This is how I'm remembering it,

but is that how it was playing at the time? Yeah, I mean, people have been very vague about Mike's process for a long time because he doesn't really speak about it, you know, and he's just sort of fed up of answering. Right, and people are fascinated by it, because it seems so unpredictable and wild. But it is very well orchestrated by him. But what it does is it provides an opportunity for actors

to act in an extremely organic way. So there is no script. What happens is you create these characters in isolation. In isolation, okay. So you work on your own with Mike, creating a character from the day they're born. to the day you're going to play them. Now, what is that process?

Like, are you writing things down? Are you talking about them? No, no. It's taking whatsoever. It's just... You're just talking it out. You're just talking it out. And are you playing it out on occasion?

No, you're just talking it out. And, you know, where they went to school, their friends, their neighbors, who lived in the house next door to that. You know, how long was it? What bus did they take to school? Or did they walk to school? Where did they go for lunch?

I mean, detail. Like, you'd leave with a headache at the end. Oh, yeah. I mean, it's the kind of thing I think would be really exciting with, like you said, like the level of detail must have been excruciating because probably a couple of days you ran out of ideas. Yeah, you do.

I mean, well, it's weird because it just, I don't know if it takes a particular kind of mind to just fire off on all that stuff once you've started building and establishing. And I mean, yeah, you can get a bit cheeky with it, you know, because I've done the play with him. I knew that, you know, once you find your occupation, you go off and you study that. Right.

In the process. So when he was talking about what Hort Tense would do for a living, I was like, oh, she's a pilot. And he was like, for a car. No, she's not. Oh, right. Okay, fine. She's a model. She tastes high cuisine for her.

She's a food critic. Paul Brenda Bleffin had to work in a factory making boxes. Oh my God. For three months. I was going to say, yeah, and is it that long? Is it that sustainable process? It's a six-month rehearsal process and three months to film. Gosh.

So, you know, you could give birth in that time. You sure could. And three months to film is luxurious, especially for a film where nothing is exploding. Right. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. Did it feel luxurious?

Did it feel like you really got to inhabit these people? Oh, you do. Yeah. But that whole rehearsal process does that for you. And you don't, you don't, you don't concern yourself with stuff that doesn't concern you. Like, you know, I didn't know what Timothy, I knew he was in it, but I didn't know what he was until that big improvisation at the barbecue at the end. And they go, oh, it's Uncle Morris. Okay.

we'll go along with that. So you're not sort of, you're just focusing on that particular character what they do. Which makes sense, doesn't it? Because you wouldn't have known about Uncle Horace until, in real life, if you'd never met this human

being, you'd have no plan for interacting with them until you were interacting with them. So it does seem organic. Yeah. I mean, it is, but it makes perfect sense to me. And we've already established that you're incredible at improvisation, having

made yourself a cup of tea for an hour in silence in a room with a bill director. Never, I mean, and to me, like, just the impulse to kind of peep to see how it was going would have been so intense. Listen, when we were doing, we, so what we would do

is improvise a scene. Now, some of these improvisations went on for like three hours. That was, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, the barbecue one was nine hours from the beginning, from the time I left my house to drive, to Hortense's apartment to get into Hortense's clothes

to then get into her car to drive to the barbecue house. From beginning to end it took about nine hours. But, you know, I remember doing the scene with the first time she meets Cynthia, Brenda Bluffin's character. And, you know, it was a mock-up, so I was actually in front of a cemetery.

And I stood on the street for about 40 minutes waiting, thinking she's not turned up. Oh, my God. and I just spied Mikely across the road behind a pillar sort of peeping to see what was going and I was thinking that

that motherfucker he's sick he's sick what he makes people go through he's twisted it's just torture one of the things about improv especially narrative improv versus like when you're doing a comedic thing

and it's kind of a burst of effort is you know so much of what you do just never makes it into the movie just because that's the nature of it. He had a narrative framework, right? He knew what the relationships were. You must have known a little bit about what was going to happen to Hortense, like what the premise of the film was.

No, nobody does. When we finished the film, two of the actors were like, they'd done something else and they sort of said to him, look, we're going to be doing press. Can we talk about the film? And he said no. And he was telling me the story. I said no to them.

Nobody knows what the film's about. Only you know what the film's about. And I'm thinking, I don't know what the film's about. I mean, I could, you know, literally will get a day out of days. Yeah, yeah. And it will be like scene 42, hortense. Everything else is redacted. Seen this, Hortense.

Everything else is that. You don't know what the hell is going on. So for people listening, a day out of days is the schedule of the work for the whole. movie. And it'll say like you said, like on Monday we're shooting scene 42, a day exterior is scene 43. The next day is night in Hortense's apartment or whatever it is. And it just helps you figure out what the hell is going on. And so you wouldn't know. And when, right? And these scenes are numbered for you, but you haven't seen a script. So those scene numbers don't even mean anything other than we're going to be at this location or that location. Right. So what it

feels like is even though when we watch the whole film, you kind of go, okay, it's her journey. using her parents and finding, you know, her birth mother, et cetera, and meeting their family. But it feels like that story for Hortense or for the actor playing Hortense, that seems quite short. Right. You know what I mean? Once you get into shooting it, it's like, okay, so the story could well be about Cynthia and all the stuff that she does without, or it could be about the daughter. Yeah. You know.

And you have no idea because there's all kinds of things that are going on without your participation. Yeah. Yeah. when did you know what the movie was about? When I saw it. Oh my God. Oh my God.

And were you, I mean, what was your reaction? Were you struck? Yeah. It was interesting, though, because I don't watch myself. Interesting. A lot of actors can't do that. And as a policy, you don't watch your own stuff. And I feel terrible sometimes because people are sort of like,

oh, that movie and da-da-da-da, and I'm thinking, I ain't seen it. Not only that, I have no idea. If I have to go to a premiere, then I'll sit there and watch, but I'm like this after the time. But what was interesting about watching her, granted, it was quite early on in my film television career, I felt like I was watching someone else. Interesting. I didn't feel like I was watching her because we did so much work to remove. I mean, I even talk about her.

I never say I. Right. About any of my characters actually. but because of, you know, that training, I suppose, with Mike Lee. But it felt like I was just watching somebody else's story. Wow. That's so exciting. I mean, because I, you know,

part of the one of the reasons why you don't watch work and a lot of actors, actors don't watch the work, is because they feel self-conscious, self-aware, kind of aware of, I don't know, all of our tricks or our foibles or the things we wish we'd differently or the things we like and then kind of picking things apart. And it must have been so interesting to feel so divorced from something you'd created. Because typically it's the opposite.

You can see yourself kind of poking through the veneer the entire time, which is why sometimes it's so hard to watch yourself perform. What did that time feel like when that movie came out and it got all of that? And you'd been, you know, just like a, you know, for years, a working actor in the theater, which can be transporting in every way and fulfilling. but, you know, just a different level of scrutiny. And I don't even know, not even modern scrutiny, like, you know, fuck the internet, but just attention. Yeah, it was bizarre.

What's interesting, the thing is, is when it came out, we then had to go in England. We were on a tour, sort of like doing publicity in the States and in Europe and being at La Cano Film Festival and Cannes and all those places. And so it was weird because you're sort of being, you're being told that, this is great, you're a fabulous actress, what are you doing next? And you're like, nothing. I'm doing anything next because I'm doing this. Right, right. You know, Brenda Blethen and I, literally, we were at, what was that hotel called?

It was up on La Siena. Oh, here in L.A. Yeah. Oh, no, it was behind sunset. It was sunset and... It's the one that where it got, it's down, Sunset Marquis. No.

Standard, the Argyle. It's off of, is that La Siena? Yes, it is La Siena. And it's just around a corner there. Mm-hmm. We decided that we'd stay on. Oh, fabulous. In L.A. for a bit.

Just meet cast and directors and stuff like that. Didn't have any money. Brenda. Brenda was like, look, don't worry, darling. I'll pay for the hotel. Mm-hmm. And we'll just, we'll just. We'll just stay out for a couple of days and do it all.

And I remember going to meet her in her hotel room one day. And she'd gone to the supermarket and got some small cereal boxes and was, and ordered some milk from room service and was using a shoehorn to eat her cereal. I was just looking at her going, this is crazy. We're in Hollywood, you know? We're like, everybody's talking about how great this film is. The Oscar-nominated film. She's got her shoe-hoyed cereal. And then we went to the laundrette to wash our clothes because room for the service in the hotel was too expensive.

Too expensive. Oh, God. What a mystery. And that is such a typical conversation to be having on the carpet or whatever in this town, or not even in this town. Like the metaphorical, the larger in this town. What's next for you? What are you doing next? Like, it's never enough that you've just been in this.

monumental thing that took a year of your life. It's like, what's next on your agenda? How, without being uncouth, how old were you at that time? Oh my gosh. I must have been 27, 28 around that time. Yeah. It's, it's, I was, I was thinking it was like, maybe like your mid till late 20s. Yeah. And I guess something like that can be kind of thrust upon you in a very strange way. You don't, you not calculate, you know, you're not thinking anything about it, you're just making a film.

From London, you don't. Right. At that time. Now, people in the film industry have got very savvy to what an Oscar campaign is. Right, right. And that you, but we were on one, but didn't know we were on one and didn't dream that we would ever be nominated. Right.

Because it was just outside of our realm, to be quite honest with you, as actors from England. Right. So when it all sort of like went off, it was just very bizarre and very strange because a lot of the interviews was like, is this something you'd always dreamt about? And of course, you sound like a complete arseller when you go, no, no, I'd never dreamt of this as if, you know, I don't want it. But that's not what it was. It was just like, I wouldn't dream in a million years. Right.

I mean, we didn't even watch it that much. Really? Yeah, the Oscars. Yeah, like just generally. Because of the time difference. You'd always read about it in the newspaper or hear about it. But it's become more of this we're going to watch the Oscars. And people are now sort of having Oscar parties.

Parties and all of that. At that time, wasn't. Did it change your life? And I don't mean like in a grand way. But did you start to think, I mean, did you reconsider how you were pushing career to decide that you wanted to do more fitness? films, did some, you know, a lot of times it's like, you know, being scouted from, you know, the B-leagues, you know, you're a baseball player. Someone sees you have an amazing game and they say,

hey, we're going to bring you up today. I mean, did, did things change in that way? Not really. I mean, not in a major way or in a way that one would expect it to because it's like, it's all work contingent, isn't it? Right. It is. And even today, there aren't the roles, you know, for, black women that one would hope that would come after a nomination like that. So then I called those the wilderness years. There are a number of wilderness years where although there's this thing where you dwell in this place of no expectation and expectation keeps knocking on the door and going, yeah, but, but, and then everybody else is telling you should be doing this, blah, blah, blah,

what about the offers, they should be coming in, no, no, no. So you really have to shut down, which is what I did. I kind of went, get out, and just sort of like, and I got married. And I got married that year, had a baby the following year. And I think it was the perfect kind of thing to just go. Right, the right time in your life, yeah. Leave me alone, because it's not happening anyway. Right.

So stop asking about it, stuff speculating, and making me feel crazy about something. I didn't feel crazy about it. before. Yeah. Yeah. So that was great doing that because it just to be doing something that was so normal, you know, and important. Humanizing. Humanizing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and then you start connecting with your parents on a totally different level. These people that have had relationships with the whole of your life. Right. When you're carrying a child, they become something else. it becomes another kind of level to that. And so I did that and sort of did bits and pieces,

little interesting indie jobs and stuff. And then I did a theatre job before when I just finished making Secrets and Lies. But then I went off. I got her letter from Peter Brooke, a theatre director, asking me to come when he's saying that he wanted to work with me in Paris

now he was another one of the actors directors that I really wanted to work with so it was like brilliant I'll be in Paris first year of my daughter's life you know I'll be living out there doing theatre so I went off and did that oh that's just

I just had like a lot of feelings about that that was just sounds so delicious yeah it was I mean it was fabulous and then when I came back that agent the agent who's names. Yeah, we're like, this is like, he's coming back.

I'm coming back as a prophecy. Yeah, and so I met with him, and he took it out and said, okay, we need to write a new list. And I was like, what? He goes, remember that list that I asked you to write? He said, you've worked with all of them. Oh, come on, Mary Ann. Oh, my God. And in the order they were ready.

Oh. I was like, bloody yellow, I've got to write another list. I should write one now. But now I won't believe it. A bag of gold, unicorn. World peace. Not in that order necessarily. Oh my gosh.

And did you make a new list? I didn't. Because I think that the whole experience that I had took away my belief or my ability to make it work in the way that it worked. The experience that I'd had. Really? Yeah, I do. I think it kind of messed with that.

It made you jaded? Oh, yeah. Really? I think so. To a certain extent, it made me jaded. Hmm. Yeah. Post Secrets and Lies? Yeah. Because of this kind of...

Because of this thing that you kind of got... I didn't get into this work because... For of all, yes. To get a designer dress or to have diamonds or to just be in a film, to be in a film, but to have nothing to do in that film, just to facilitate the story, somebody else's story or their fantasy or their propaganda in some cases. it's sort of like what am I doing? Where's the artist? Where where's she gone?

Right, right. Where I've got to find that. The thing you were talking about, I was trying to like, you made me think of like the weight articulated for people listening, like the idea that like you're saying, you should be doing this and why isn't this happening. And kind of creating like you said, a set of expectations that really had never crept into your consciousness. And then what you realize is this stuff isn't even important to me. You're making it important to me or you're implying there's something wrong that it's not. important to me, but I'm not going to revise my desires and expectations based on this completely different scale that I've never been invested in. But it's very powerful those conversations, all those people coming and going, this is what should happen next, this is what you must do next. And it can really, I mean, I think it can really panic you as an actor,

because implicit in all of that is if it doesn't go this way, it's not going to go at all. You know what I mean? And I think for women, if you don't do the ABC, and D, the time the clock is ticking, bop, bop, b, b. I know. I know, it's bullshit, but I think it's like a litany, it's like an ongoing kind of, you know, like you've got to do A, B, and C in this order and at this speed or someone's going to lap you.

Yeah. I mean, right before I did without a trace, there was this whole film actor, TV actor thing. Right. That doesn't exist anymore, obviously. Yeah. But it was like, you know, you do film. But there ain't no films coming. So would you want me to do stuff? I've got a child. Right, right.

So, yeah. You know. Was that the next kind of, I don't have better language for this. So I'm going to use this very simple, dumb language, a big thing that happened post.

Because it seems like that was about, you said it was, you were there for seven years, and it was about seven years ago. So that was like 15 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. That was like the next kind of like,

see, because I feel like when you're an artist, everything is big to you. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. It was, it was the, you know, it was a high-profile job, I suppose.

Right. I mean, it's not as big as living in Paris doing a completely in Paris with your, I mean, no, that's way better. But it was the kind of the next kind of like high-profile project that you did. And you had to move here. I had to move to L.A. And at this time, you have two small children? Two, yeah. I just had my second child.

So she's been here. She's grown up here, essentially. Does one of your kids have a British accent and one of Americans? adorable. That's so interesting. Because so much of your identity can be filter around how you sound. You know what I mean? And it must be so interesting for the two of them. I love when they argue. Oh really? Oh, that must be so fun. It's fun. Hilarious. I mean, it used to be better

when they're younger now. It's like, shut out. Right, exactly. And they were younger, it used to be hilarious. Oh, God. Was that difficult for you to make that decision to move to the States? It was. Well, what happened was they said it was New York. It was going to shoot. in New York. And I was like, that's doable. And a much shorter flight from London. Yeah. A much shorter flight. It's, you know, architecturally.

Yeah, it's an Urbane. You can walk everywhere. You don't need a car. And so then it was when it was shooting here, it was just like, oh my God. That is a much bigger culture of shock. You have to drive to the mall to walk around. You have to drive to walk the isolation of it all. It was tough. And it took me probably a good

three years to actually start liking in L.A. You know, it's like an impenetrable thing, L.A. I find,

like it took me at least that long to like it. And I sometimes feel as if I just started liking it a little while ago. And I really wonder

about that because now I really have this intense affection for L.A. But it took a long time to find that. And there would be especially,

difficult. I think if you were raising a family just because, you know, you care about their experiences and are they kind of getting the same cultural context that you had when you were a kid and you're away from their grandparents and, you know, their aunts and uncles. And that must have been a big adjustment. And can I ask you a personal question, which you can feel free to say, no. You lost your brother, like, you and I around the same age, so like in your early 30s. And was that right around the time that you started working on without a trait? No, that was before. I lost my father when I started working on without a chance.

Oh, my God. Yeah, I was actually doing a film called The Murder of Stephen Lawrence when my brother died, which was about a woman whose son is killed, you know, and the police sort of like cover up who killed her. I mean, it was huge news in England. And so I was in the middle of doing that when he died. actually. He had not on Hodgkin's lymphoma. Oh my gosh. Was it the

diagnosis and when he passed was that like a long period of time? No, it was actually quite quick. He went quite quickly and didn't suffer terribly. Oh, that's good. But I was in denial about, you know, I actually, my brother survived so many things

that it was like, he'll be fine. Right, right. It's just a pain. And he turned up here drunk next to him. and he was young. I mean, I imagine he was young. Yeah, he was 41 when you did. Yeah, so it doesn't even, I can see it not making any sense.

Yeah, no. It was very odd. Did it affect you? Did it affect your work? Did it affect your acting? It probably had to. I was working with Paul Greengrass at the time. Oh, God, he's so great.

Is he great? He would have been on the list if you'd make the second list. If he'd been making films at that time, then he had it. And I couldn't get hold of anyone, because my brother died in the middle of the night. Oh, gosh. So I'm like frantically drinking brandy,

mopping the kitchen floor. My husband's watching me thinking, she's gone, mad, she's just over. And so I'm frantically calling all the producers, Paul, I'm calling everyone to go, look, my brother said, I don't know what to do. And I know we've got to film tomorrow. So the driver comes to pick me up,

In the morning. And I tell him and he's just like, oh my God, what do you want to do? I said, well, we're going to have to go and maybe come back. So he takes me to work. And then they all run in as they start arriving. And they go, look, would you go home? And I was like, but actually, I don't know that I want to go home. Well, can you work?

I said, I don't know. Okay. Well, let us know if you want to go. And so I was like, okay then. We worked for most of the day, actually, and I was fine. And we were doing a scene where Dorian Lawrence and her husband Neville are in the kitchen, washing dishes. And it was bizarre. And he just, like, I think he just sort of, the guy, Hugh, just put his arm on my shoulder or something.

And I just, ble. It was just the weirdest thing. And he was like, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so, and I went, I don't know. And I kind of end up laughing because I'm just saying this is really silly, but it really isn't because you put your hands on my shoulder. But it's probably just there. Yeah.

You know. And then did you stop, did you stop, like, tip off sit for a little bit? Yeah, yeah. We had a big cuddle. Paul was like, go home. Yeah. It's like, all right then. But then the poor driver, he knew I loved music in the car.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Every channel that man turned to, there was some. Oh, God. song. How can I live without you, Leanne rhymes? It was like, I mean, one after the other. This poor guy.

This poor guy. Roy, his name was. And the following, well, I didn't go to work for another couple of days. And then we laughed about it so hard. He was going, I didn't know. And I knew that you'd be, like, upset if I turned the music off. Because I know you'd love to have the music. He goes, but I just couldn't.

Fine. I just imagine him like melting into a seat. I know. He kept looking in the rear view mirror while I was like, oh, I'm like a fuck of the car. Oh, man. Oh my God.

And then you come here and you have like a big upheaval. You're moving your young children to a new country and your husband and you know, I imagine you met in London and you've been living in London your whole life. We talked a little bit about how different that was for you. I wonder culturally how different. I'm talking about now culturally as an actor, how different that was for you. I hope we don't speak the, we speak the same language, but it stops there.

Really? Yeah. It was really very difficult to just kind of go, oh, what do you mean by that? It was very interesting is an English writer came to Without a Trace in the second year. And the banter that we had, I mean, he was taken aside and told by the producers, you can't talk to her like that. Oh, how interesting. Because it was just expletive.

Right, right, right, right. All that. Yeah. And just not kind of understanding that that's how we are. That's how we are. Yeah, that's how we are. And it's fine. And he's actually quite honest when he asks me,

well, can you just bloody say it? Right, right. Instead of mincing away and talking to producer and, yes. Yeah. You know, I mean, I could go with that. Right, right. And I wonder, is the set, is a UK set as a British set more collegial than an American set? Because it can be very hierarchical.

And of course it's cultural. And I mean like grandly cultural, but then specifically cultural. Like on some shows, everybody is more collegial and more, it's a little bit flattened in terms of people interacting with each other. And they're not being like, don't talk to the actors that way or don't talk to that guy that way. And on some shows, for whatever reason, because of one person or people aren't, the show or whatever, the sets are very kind of separated. Right, yeah. I think that the stuff that I've worked on in England,

although I've heard of people being nightmares and stuff going on, but the experiences I've had in England thus far have been kind of, you know, evened out and more collaborative and just, you know, working with David Tennant and Olivia Coleman who head up Broadchurch. Right. It's just like, I mean, they are beautiful. Yeah. you know, the way they sit with everybody,

everybody sits together, everybody sort of like hangs out or they might go out to dinner or, you know, and it's very respectful, very respectful. But, you know, in theatre, which was really funny, I did a play in London a couple of years ago and they expect you to go off, you know, if you're the lead, you know, oh, gosh, you eat, everybody eats together and everybody,

you know because a lot of them sort of like well I'm the lead and I'm going to go off and have my time working so much harder than everybody yeah yeah um was there a moment well this is not I don't know I don't know I was going to say was there a moment where you felt like okay this is because you were on that show for seven years you know what I mean and being on a series like that can be life changing and one of the ways it changes your life is that it just puts you at a position not just to have access to different, more varied roles, just by virtue of prominence, right? Also, it puts you in a financial position to take roles that you might not be able to take otherwise.

Some fuck you money is always. Yeah, exactly, exactly. When that show went off the air, did you move back to London? No, I stayed here because at that point, I loved it. I loved being in L.A. I loved the sunshine and the optimism. you know.

We are an optimistic. Yeah. Yeah. And at first you're kind of like, that's bullshit. You don't feel that good. Nobody feels that good. You know?

And then when you go back to London and somebody practically throws your plate at you in a restaurant, you're like, give me L.A. Give me L.A. whether it's full subject and you wouldn't give it to me. The thing I, there is, there is. And that optimist also translates the idea of like, well, of course I can have it the way that I would like it.

Why would I not? And not in a shitty way. But at times I've been in love, London, my friends that are British or Irish, I'll be like, well, I don't like this. I want to turn it back and get something else. Well, you can't do that. Well, of course, I can. I have to pay for it.

I'm not going to eat this. And they'll know, but that's not just dumb. Just eat it. And that's how it came. And that is a big cultural difference, I think. It really is. I mean, they literally go, well, what's wrong with it? Yeah. But I don't like it. It's not seasoned very well, and there's salt and paper on the table.

Like, do you know what? It's always. Please. Whereas here you can order a Caesar salad and turn it into a cob. Right, exactly. You know, and then you go, why don't you just order the cop? Can I have the Caesar with the cob dressing and can you put some bacon in there? But that is nasty. Half chicken, half lobster.

Yeah. Is it a cow salad? No, no, no, no, no. Caesar and then go back through the litany of things again. Just makes you understood me. And so have you lived here since you, do you go back and forth now? Yeah, I go back and forth. Yeah, yeah.

And your family's still in London. in London? There's something I want to ask that I've been dancing around, and I guess it's about the difference between the life of someone who works because you are on a series right now on another television series. You had a big break in the interim, not from acting, but from series television. I guess it's just, is an actor, is there a life that you prefer?

I love the autonomy of being, able to do theater or film or guest spot or you know i prefer that i would say um i i like freedom i don't like having to have to yeah um yeah it's it's it's um it's it's like an interesting kind of rock and hard place because they're you know what i mean there's a different kind of freedom you get from with being on a series which is just the reliability of the yeah yes and that's great. Yeah, but it's a gilded cage for sure.

And it can be a grind. Right, yeah. You know, with a lot of shows. It's a lot of hours. You know, it kind of, I mean, most shows get, what, six weeks off? Yeah, yeah. Maybe two months if you're lucky, no.

You know, and a week at Christmas. Yeah, and the hours can just eat you alive. They can. Yeah. They can. And it's fast. It's a lot faster than. Yeah.

You know. Yeah. There's no. There's no time to take time. No, no, no, no. Sometimes you get pages the same day. Yeah. Right before the scene, this has been rewritten.

Yeah. And coming from the experience that you had with Mike Lee, where you spent six months, did you work in an optometrist's office? Yes, I studied optometry. You know? City and London College and then worked, went off and, you know, interned. I mean. And there's one poxy scene that's less than like 12 seconds long with me testing

someone's eyes. I know. You want to just punch him sometimes. I just want to kill him. But I tell you, by the time you finish that film, I was like, give me a script. Any script, I don't give a shit. My brain is tired.

Yeah. Yeah. Of just, you know, constantly kind of trying to pick apart this moment in the moment, you know. But it isn't, you know, I mean, you know, especially with one out, or, you know, you're just kind of getting in there and, like, hitting your mark, getting those lines out.

Yeah, and it does vary, direct by director. Some are just like, stand there. Yeah. Like that. Yeah. Louder, faster. Right. That's a good one.

Faster, faster, faster. And then moving on. Yeah. Yeah. So, I think it's actually time for self-inflicted wounds. Oh, my God. I've been thinking about it. You know, it's been at the back of one lag.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, no. No? Yeah, no. I always tell people that it's not like it's a requirement. You know what I mean?

Like it's a fun thing, but it shouldn't be like a test. I had a self-inflicting wound, but it turned out to be, like I said, I've got this pattern of disadvantages turning into advantages. Right. So I had this, always had this weight thing, right? So we're not always. I'll post-baby weight, kind of. thing. And this lady

who used to do my head, we'd talk about different diets and the workouts and I was at Barry's boot camp, I did all that stuff. Anyway, I didn't steer for quite a while and I bump into her at I think it was Gelson's. She looked like spelt and all this stuff

and I was like, God, what did you do? And she was like oh honey, I had a tummy tuck. I went, what? And she was like, yeah, I got to look and she showed me a belly and it was like Oh my God. Yes.

And I was like, shit. And she was like, I'll give you his number. I'll give you his number. So I thought, yeah, all right then. Right. So I take the number and I go back to the apartment. And I go online. And before I know it, I'm typing in the L.A. marathon.

Oh. And I flip in sign up. Wow. Then and there. Right. run the paragon rather than have elective surgery. Not that I have anything against it for those who want to do it. But I signed up to do that.

And then came the training for that. Right. Right. And, you know, having to do these long runs on Saturday. And then coming to it and doing it. And I think, you know, I did all the training. So it was really good. So the first 13 miles are like, I'm beautiful. I'm going to change the world.

By the time you get to 17, there's a split personality. Oh, yeah. And this voice is there telling you all this shit about yourself. You've never completed this. You bought that sewing machine. You haven't even taken it out of the box. You never finish anything you start. Go and sit over there.

What are you trying to prove? Just tormenting you the whole time. No one will judge you if you walk off the course. No one's even watching. That one came. That one came. But I did it, but it hurt. Oh, yeah.

Like hell. And for weeks afterwards. For weeks, going down the stairs was much worse than going up. Didn't go to the toilet for two days. Oh, my God. My God. And when I went, I wanted to call Animal Control. I thought, I should get a hanger and, you know, a metal hanger and make sure it's not alive.

It was one of those. Oh, my God. But that was a self-inflicted wound, I have to say. Yeah. Well, I mean, the option of all of that is you did, you actually did it and you finished it. I did. Yeah. And I think it can be like a great mental reference point of like, I've got the mental toughness to push through. Like hallucinating essentially. Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I mean, it was, I felt mad. I really did. And the only way I got through it was I was literally running shouting left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot, left, like a lunatic. I think that was a superlative story. I'm exactly right.

Marian, this was so lovely. Thank you for doing my show. I'm just, I'm delighted and transported, so thanks for the time. Yay. That was Marianne Jean-Baptiste. She's so great and interesting, isn't she? Ah, God, yummy. Just like a yummy conversation and one that I could have carried on for a very, very long time.

And I find her, I don't know. Just mysterious, wonderful, delightful, interesting, and I love her career. I think she's pretty special. If you watched her without a trace, I think she did that show with an American accent, but her actual accent is pretty dazzling and cool. Yeah, that was that. Hey, everybody, you know what to do. Come follow me and friend me online.

I'm in the middle of editing my film. I directed a feature film, and I'm in the middle of editing it now. And I'll be doing that all summer and hopefully getting it ready to submit to festivals in the fall. It's a dream come true. I'm not going to lie to you. And it went so spectacularly. For those of you who participated in my Kickstarter campaign, I can never thank you enough, but you are going to be thanked with rewards as soon as we get those all together it out

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