How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - ON AMBITION… With GILLIAN ANDERSON AND MUNROE BERGDORF

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Starting point is 00:02:23 Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Welcome back to How to Fail. This week we're talking about ambition, the engine that drives us forward, the inner voice that tells us to keep going, and the shadow side that asks whether we've ever done enough. First actor and Emmy winner Gillian Anderson reflects on being a self-confessed workaholic and the belief that she has to earn her place through constant effort. Highly relatable. We discuss pleasure as power, the guilt of not working, and how she balances fierce professional drive with parents. Then model and fashion icon Munro Bergdorf shares how her ambition was forged through rejection and gatekeeping in the fashion industry. From being treated as a gimmick to witnessing real change on the runway, she speaks about perseverance, representation and widening the path for others. This is an

Starting point is 00:03:18 episode about striving, self-worth and it asks whether ambition liberates us or quietly runs the show. First up, let's hear from Gillian Anderson. Your final failure is your failure to not work. Are you a workolic? Yeah. And where do you think that comes from? Why do you feel that you need to work in order to earn your place on this planet? I don't quite know, but I do have so, I mean, it's like a Protestant work ethic.

Starting point is 00:03:53 I'm not quite sure where it's come from, but what I do know is I feel incredibly lucky. on the one hand. I mean, on all hands. I don't mean. Yeah, I'm incredibly lucky, incredibly fortunate, privileged all of that to have the choices that I have had both in my life and my career. And part of it, I think, is showing myself that I deserve it because I'm doing all these things. If all these good things are happening, then I'd better be working for them. You know, it's not coming lightly or it's not frivolous. That's another thing actually that I wanted to talk about in terms of pleasure that I'm starting to realize too is that so much of pleasure is perceived as being

Starting point is 00:04:42 frivolous. Yes. Trivial. Yeah. And why? Why isn't it as much of a sense of power, you know, to lean into that, to probably embrace pleasure and make space for it and make time for it and give it to? oneself as it is the other things that we.

Starting point is 00:05:03 And so I'm, you know, I'm trying to have more of that in my life, but also realizing the degree to which so much of what I'm involved in, whether it's, you know, this drink or what are the shows that I work on or, etc., is about pleasure and the joy and pleasure. Anyway, I digress. I think you're so right about pleasure, because why can't it be as ennobling, as transformative? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:05:29 as suffering or sadness or pain. Yeah. Because it's the same thing but the different end of the spectrum. Yeah, exactly. I mean, actually, I do feel like even though I am a self-described workaholic, I do get pleasure from it. I do get pleasure from it. When I'm clear, actually, it turns out,

Starting point is 00:05:51 when I'm not eating prawn crackers and drinking Coca-Cola, I think quite clearly, and things come to me. I'm in a moment right now where, and I'm sure that a lot of it has to do with my age. And it's none of wanting to leave a mark. It's none of that. It's just, it is feeling like, hang on, I've still got some things to do. I've still got, you know, things to do that I didn't even know I wanted to do.

Starting point is 00:06:15 And that is, of course, in roles and building a company that I'm building. But it's also just in terms of realizing that I do have a few things that I want to share with people. And have you ever regretted? working too hard or taking on a project? There have been a couple moments when I haven't been able to stop around my kids, you know, that had more to do with not in terms of my work as an actor, but stuff on the side or with other projects and stuff where I have felt the guilt of choosing to focus on those things

Starting point is 00:06:59 instead of having time with kids. And I feel like there's a good balance right now. I feel like when I'm with them, I'm with them. And that has become more and more meaningful to me. It's been really important to me in terms of by acting work to always have them as part of the priority in terms of this is when I'm available, this is when I'm not, et cetera. But this is different.

Starting point is 00:07:25 This is in terms of what happens with meetings and with Zooms and all those other things that end up in our days today, taking, sucking that time. And I've got some pretty strict rules around all of that so that my workaholism is something that my boys can look at as being beneficial to them because they can see, you know, not just in terms of what I bring home at the end of the day, but in terms of seeing me effectively building things. and they both have an interest in that.

Starting point is 00:08:02 And I think it's been really great that they get to see. And I think they would say that too, to see a mum who is entrepreneurial and making things. And they're teenagers, aren't they? Yeah. And you mentioned two of them are, and then I have one who's, yeah, 28. You know those times late at night when you're scrolling

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Starting point is 00:10:47 slash fail. That's 15% off when you buy two pairs of glasses at Warby, that's Warrbby, Parker.com After you purchase, they'll ask where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them that we sent you. I think I'm an extremely ambitious person. I have a drive that I think is my biggest attribute. I've really had to live a life of discipline and a life of tenacity and constant setbacks, constant people that are gatekeeping, people that are withholding and, you know,

Starting point is 00:11:27 coming into the fashion industry, nobody wanted to hire me. And it took some of the biggest photographers just taking a chance of me, like Nick Knight, like Rankin, who wanted to work with me when, you know, I was constantly having doors slammed in my face because they were like, why would we work with a trans person almost? And it's, you know, I know that a lot of black models from the 90s felt the same way. It's like, we're, you know, I watched a documentary the other day where they're like, we're just not hiring black models this season.

Starting point is 00:11:59 It's exactly the same. It's like, why would we work with the trans person? There's not that kind of campaign. It's not an LGBT campaign. Wow. And like now we're seeing that change. We're seeing trans people be in shows and it's not a thing that they're trans.

Starting point is 00:12:14 It's just, you know, it is a thing because the visibility is incredible. And, you know, when I see a trans model on a runway, if it's like Alex or if it's Maxim or if it's, oh God, India or if it's all of these incredible people that are within the industry, that means so much to me, but it is not exploited that they're trans anymore. And for so long it was. I have done shoots where my transness has been, you know, almost like a gimmick. And I'm really glad that

Starting point is 00:12:45 I've opened doors for so many people. I've been in this industry for almost a decade now. But if it wasn't for, you know, hearing the stories of, you know, women like Naomi Campbell and Jones Smalls and Jordan Dunn and Leomy Anderson talking about, you know, being exploited from like the ages of 14 and being told that there's no black models this season or being on set and not knowing how to do black hair. If it wasn't for those stories and seeing their tenacity and that they could get through it, then I could apply the same kind of work ethic and be like, okay, well, one day there's going to be more than one trans person on the runway or there's going to be a trans person on the runway. And, you know, know, I have faith that there's going to be multiple trans people on runways one day,

Starting point is 00:13:30 and then that's going to filter out as well. And then we're going to see more trans people in all sorts of campaigns, and then the beauty standard is going to change. And then trans beauty is not going to be seen as any different from any other beauty, just like black beauty is now getting the respect that it didn't once upon a time. And that's really, you know, what the book is about as well is that everything does change. And I've really got faith that one day trans people are going to be able to, navigate society in the same kind of freedom that other people that experience the same

Starting point is 00:14:03 kind of oppression in yesteryear did and we'll just be able to be ourselves without having to constantly be so aware of the fact that we're different. You gave me four words. I'm going to let you off the final one. Oh, I'm sorry. I forgot that I was. Maybe the last one's long winded. It's such a beautiful place to end. And if I can, I've been. I've got. I've got. I've got. I've got. I would like to give the final word. You're like, this is quickfire. I think, no, I never wanted to be quickfire with you, honestly. I could do this for hours, but I know you've got a fabulous lunch to go to.

Starting point is 00:14:35 The final word for me would be powerful. You're so powerful. You're powerful in your truth. You're powerful in your words on the page. You're powerful in person. I am so grateful to you for finding time to do how to fail. Honestly, it's meant the world to me.

How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - ON AMBITION… With GILLIAN ANDERSON AND MUNROE BERGDORF

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