How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S12, Ep6 How to Fail: Stanley Tucci

Episode Date: October 6, 2021

Today, I welcome the inimitable Stanley Tucci. His talents are legion: he's an Academy Award nominated actor whose credits include everything from The Devil Wears Prada to The Hunger Games and Julie & Julia. He's also a notable foodie, and the presenter of the Emmy-award-winning Searching for Italy and a beautiful memoir, Taste: My Life Through Food, which is published on Thursday. And,  of course, he's the  negroni-making Instagram sensation whose lockdown cocktail skills launched a thousand salivating online comments.Stanley joins me to talk about his failure to swim, his self-perceived failure to direct and his failure to help his first wife, Kate, when she was dying of cancer. He is everything you would expect him to be: charming, urbane, eloquent, funny and profoundly moving. I absolutely loved recording this episode and I hope you love listening to it too. What. A. Guy.--Taste: My Life in Food is out on Thursday. You can preorder your copy here.--My new novel, Magpie, is out now. You can order it here.---How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is hosted by Elizabeth Day, produced by Naomi Mantin and Chris Sharp. We love hearing from you. To contact us, email [e-mail]---Social Media:Stanley Tucci @stanleytucciElizabeth Day @elizabdayHow To Fail @howtofailpod         Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger, because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day, and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. My guest today bears the notable distinction of being beloved by millions in multiple areas of his life. During lockdown, a video filmed by his wife and posted on Instagram of him making a Negroni went viral after viewers commented breathlessly on its erotic charge and the impressiveness of his toned biceps. As a film actor, he is unforgettably scene-stealing in everything from The Road to

Perdition to The Devil Wears Prada, via The Hunger Games and The Lovely Bones, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award. As a foodie, he has written two mouth-watering cookbooks and recently presented a TV show subtitled Searching for Italy. One reviewer was moved to note that the series revealed him to be not just a great actor and a potent thirst object, but also a thoughtful, charming host. As if that weren't enough, he's directed four movies and his funny, moving, charming memoir of his life in and out of the kitchen, Taste, is published in a few days' time. His name, of course, is Stanley Tucci. Tucci was born in New York and grew up in Westchester County, the eldest of three children in a family with roots in Calabria. Italian food was an integral

part of his upbringing and taste includes some mouth-watering family recipes. But Tucci also writes for the first time about being diagnosed with oral cancer three years ago and being stripped of one of life's most sensory pleasures. He had a feeding tube for six months and a soft food diet for two years. Now happily recovered, he is once again able to enjoy a perfectly judged martini. For all his success, Tucci claims never to have felt particularly successful i'm always disappointed in myself he said in 2016 i always feel that i haven't achieved enough or been as good a parent as i could be stanley tucci potent thirst object welcome to how to fail thank you so much thank you then thank you for that embarrassingly lovely introduction.

Well, thank you for being an embarrassingly lovely person. I sort of feel bad that I ended on that quote because it's a bit of a downer, really. But I wanted to ask you, because you said it in 2016, to ask you, because you said it in 2016, I wonder whether that has changed since you survived cancer. Do you still feel that way? Do you still feel disappointed in yourself? Oh, yes, always. That's why I wanted to do your podcast. Yeah. Great. Yeah, I couldn't wait. Finally, I have the right venue to talk about it. Of course you do. I feel that I have achieved certain things that I've wanted to Of course you do. I feel that I have achieved certain things that I've wanted to. But what I mean by that, I suppose, is that there's always

more to achieve. There's more to explore within the things I've already explored. And then there are so many other things I want to explore. That's really what I mean by that. And certainly on a personal level, the old quote, you know, one is only as happy as your most unhappy child or whatever that expression now I can't remember. But as a parent of five kids, you go to bed and you wake up thinking of how you can be a better parent, because that day you, you did something that that you didn't feel was right. And you just want to make it right all the time. You mentioned that you've got five kids, three of them are adult now, and two are younger. And I wonder if you feel you've got any better at parenting?

At certain times, yes. And at certain times, no. At certain times, like we all do, I have a tendency to retreat into sort of reactive behavior and not really taking the time to think before I speak. A lot of that comes from fear, fear of making sure your point gets across, that you know that where that kid wants to go is not the right direction for them. And you think that by raising your voice and getting angry is the way to make that not happen. Sometimes that is the case. And a lot of times it has the opposite effect. What is your youngest child's favourite food at the moment? Amelia, for lunch every day, when she goes to nursery, she brings a jam sandwich,

which is adorable with the crusts cut off. And at home, she'll usually have avocado, some salami and breadsticks and little like quinoa crackers and little cherry tomatoes. So sweet. I know, it's very healthy. It's very healthy. She sounds like Gwyneth Paltrow. I loved taste so much because what you do in the book is it's a love letter to food, but it's a love letter to those moments in your life, which proved to be so important, seen through the prism of that. It was so wonderful, for instance, reading about how you fell in love with your wife, Felicity, whilst pheasant plucking. That is not a euphemism. You

literally plucked pheasants, didn't you? Yes, we did. Yes, you can make so many jokes with that one thought. Yes. Yes, we did. And it was really wonderful. I mean, we first met at her sister's wedding, which was in Italy on Lake Como. And that was really a magical few days. And then we started dating when I came straight to England after that from Italy to work on a film. And we started going out to restaurants. And the first time we went to a restaurant, I watched her eat. We had talked a lot about food at the wedding. But then when I saw how much she loved to eat, you just can't help but fall in love with someone who loves to eat.

Who loves to eat well, I mean. Not just sort of like shoving things in their mouth, you know, at random. I should just say, for anyone who doesn't know, the sister you're mentioning is Emily Blunt. And she was getting married to John Krasinski at the Lake Como home of George Clooney. And did Emily secretly set you up with Felicity? Was it destined to be? No, not really. No. I do know that as people saw us getting closer and closer

over the couple of three days with the wedding, on the last night of the wedding, we went into a bar that George has in the house and we were just sitting there chatting and someone said, you know, Emily, I just saw Stan and Fee disappear into the, and Emily came in sort of going, Fee, Fee, where are you? We were just innocently, I swear, having a drink at the bar. But, you know, it was pretty evident that there was an attraction there. But I don't think it was Emily's intention to set us up in any way. Okay. You also reprint your wedding menu that you had when you got married to Felicity, which is the first time I think I've seen that in a book, which is wonderful. But given the importance that food has in your life, I had no idea of what you went through with cancer,

and it seems so cruel that that's what it attacked, the illness attack, one of the things that you love most. And I just wanted to ask you about that, really, how hard it was to go through and how hard it was to revisit when you wrote about it? It wasn't really hard when I revisited it because I was still going through it. And I still am going through it in a way. This is the first time I've spoken about it to anybody in the press or on a podcast or anything. So forgive me if I stumble a little bit, but it was horrible. I was very afraid. My first wife died of cancer. You know, she struggled for four years. We flew all around the world and tried a multitude of treatments, both standard of care and alternative, quote unquote. And in the end, it was of no use. I sort of armed with the knowledge

and a lot of contacts in the world of cancer, I felt that I was in a stronger position than most people who had been diagnosed. However, that did not really assuage my fear completely. I had always been very, very healthy. I've never really been sick in any severe way. And so it was a real blow to me. And the fact that it was where it was, was in some ways a good thing. The fact that it had metastasized was a great thing. When I say it was a good thing, I mean that the cure rate for that kind of cancer is extremely high, particularly if it hasn't metastasized. However, there was a large tumor on the base of my tongue and I had been misdiagnosed for two years, so the tumor was really sizable.

So they couldn't perform surgery, so I had to have high-dose targeted radiation. And when I say high-dose, like really high-dose. I found out later that it was much higher than sort of normal, I think, and augmented with low-dose chemotherapy. Of course, both of these things I refused to do at the beginning. But then when you meet the doctors and look at the statistics, and I talked to scientists who are friends of mine and other doctors who are friends of mine in the cancer world, they said, you need to do this because otherwise there's not a lot of hope for you. So I did it. And it was much worse than I ever, ever thought it would be. And it's lasted much longer than I ever thought it would.

I couldn't eat anything at five weeks into seven weeks of treatment. I begged for a feeding tube to be put in. I was so sick for six months at least. I lost 30 pounds. You know, your muscles start to atrophy and I'm a sort of exercise freak. I exercise six days a week. I lost not only that on my physical self, but I lost my sense of taste and smell. It wasn't even just losing it. It was that everything flipped. So anything that would normally taste good,

tasted bad. It was that simple. And I lost my saliva. Without saliva, you can't break down food in your mouth. Therefore, you can't eat meat, even a piece of bread sometimes. So eventually, it's been over three years now, and I'm back to almost normal, but I don't think I'll ever really be back to normal. So it was horrible. And I think the most difficult thing was not being able to share food and drink with my family and friends because that is my life. I love cooking. I love the conviviality of sitting down with people in a restaurant or at my home or their home and eating and drinking. I love it. And come five o'clock, that's really all I want to do. I'm not interested in working nights. I'm not interested in it anymore. I'm not interested in working nights. I'm not interested in any more. I'm not interested in

any of it. Five o'clock when I finished doing what I need to do, I want it to be over and I want to have a cocktail and I want to sit down and have a great dinner with my friends and family. And I couldn't do that. And I couldn't do it for a year and a half or more. And when I did do it, it was painful. It was painful to swallow, to try to talk to people while you're eating. You know, you feel sort of embarrassed. But now I'm at the point where I'm almost there. And it was a very long winded answer to your question, but I just figured it was a beautiful answer. Thank you. an admiration for you for how you've handled it and how you managed to keep it so private and how you've now decided to talk about it on your own terms and how you don't flinch from describing what it was actually like. I will get onto your failures in just a second, but I just want to know from you the lack of control that one has over a disease as unjust as cancer must take you to some dark places. What do you think you learnt in the midst of that darkness?

Well, not that I didn't know I was mortal, but there was a part of me that thought, I'll never really get cancer. It's not in my family, not that it is necessarily simply because of genetics. And people are starting to realize that now. Because I think it's important for me to say, as part of that question, that cancer was treated as a metabolic disease up until the discovery of the genome. And then it started to be treated purely as a genetic disease. And now people are going back again and realizing that, yes, genetics play a part of it, but it really is more about our metabolism than genetics. So if you have maybe a genetic predisposition to cancer,

it doesn't necessarily mean you should have a double mastectomy. It doesn't necessarily mean if testicular cancer runs in your family that you should necessarily just cut your balls off, if you know what I mean. People have to get checked and people have to stay healthy and they have to make sure that their metabolism is in proper working order as best you can. So for me, that was a huge shock to me, because I was very healthy. There was nothing I could do to stop it. And that's frightening. I think it's particularly frightening when you're just about to reach the age of 60. And there's a part of me that wishes it had happened when I was younger and stronger.

So it was kind of, as I said, not that I didn't know I was mortal, but I guess I suddenly became more mortal. And you were having a child at the time. Felicity was, yeah, I mean, wow. That was fun. Double whammy. Yes. Poor Felicity. And we were moving into a new house and the kids were soon to graduate high school and Camilla was doing her, whatever you call those exams here. And I mean, it was this sort of perfect storm. And it's really frightening because there almost is not a week. And I swear that goes by where I don't hear news that somebody that I am somehow connected to has been diagnosed with cancer. And that is staggering. I just found out today that a friend of mine has been diagnosed with cancer. We found out a few days ago that someone that we know, her father,

diagnosed another friend recently and another friend. It's literally a weekly email or phone call or whatever. I try to put people in touch. People sort of come to me and ask me questions about it, and I'll try to steer them in the right direction, either with, you know, go to this doctor or look up this, try to understand this. Because people get so afraid, you know, that they don't really get all the information, and they'll sometimes just do what the doctor tells them to do. And sometimes what the doctor tells you to do isn't necessarily the right thing. You know, doctors have replaced God in our society. And I think we have to be very careful. There are so many brilliant doctors out

there, but they're also just people. And I think that, you know, not being afraid to get a second opinion is super, super important. And doing the research yourself, the more knowledge you have, the better you can help yourself or your wife or your kid or whatever. I have to say, in taste, you come across as wonderfully as you always do. But Felicity sounds like such a hero and really the kind of woman that I aspire to be when I grow up. She sounds completely great. And I know that she's also a literary agent, so I'm very grateful for her birthing books into the world too. Why do you think people were so obsessed with that Negroni video that she filmed?

You know, I'll be honest. I have no idea. I'm shocked to this day. It's completely changed my life. I've been in this business for 40 years pretending to be other people. I guess all I had to do was be myself in order to become incredibly famous. So I don't know. I really, really don't know. All I can say is I'm glad of it. I guess if I look at it, there's a certain self-assurance about the way I make it, but also it's very clumsy too.

And that is the way sort of I go through life. And I think that people like that. But it just really is the truth of it. And injecting humor into it and all that is important. I think especially when, you know, people are just shut up in their homes going mad. I think that must be a lovely discovery when you realize that people love you as you are. I mean, what a relief. Yes, it is a relief. Because I think that as actors, there is so much we always joke about my friends. You know, it's like how much self-loathing can I loathe myself more than you loathe yourself?

You know, I mean, I always say, you know, why do I want to go through life as me? I want to go through my life as other people too. But as I get older, you become more secure, especially when everyone thinks you're great because you made a cocktail. And life becomes a bit easier. Well, just as we've hit that positive note, I'm going to drag you back to all the things that you failed at. Good, good. And your first failure, Stanley, is your failure to learn how to swim. Tell us about that. Well, that's about it. I mean, I can't swim.

And I never learned. I had a horrible, still have, a real fear of the water. Supposedly, this is what my parents had told me, that I almost drowned in the Hudson River when I was two years old. Now, first of all, what I was doing in the Hudson River, and what anyone's doing in the Hudson River swimming is, you know, God knows. You could die a lot more than drowning if you go in the Hudson River. And what anyone's doing in the Hudson River swimming is, you know, God knows, you know, you could die a lot more than drowning if you go on the Hudson River. Anyway, supposedly, maybe that stuck in the back of my brain. And there you have it, you know, so the next time you're thrown into the water, your whole organism goes, no, I don't think so.

So whenever I would take swimming lessons as a kid at the public pool, I was terrified. And I'd cry. And the poor instructors, who were usually just teenagers or whatever, this is in the 1960s, and they would just sort of look at you like, what's the matter? Just get in the water. But it was a profound, deep-seated fear. And my parents weren't really swimmers. A lot of Italians aren't really swimmers.

Like a lot of fishermen don't swim. You know, they just go out fishing. I don't know. It was a fear that was really profound. And even as an adult now, and every house I've had, except for the one in England, had pools. I go in up to my waist and I can swim a length or two, but that's really about it. If a kid jumps on me and tries to play, quote unquote, in the deep end, I just take the kid and just throw them away from me because I'm like, you're drowning me. And if we both go down, I can't save you. People always say you should learn. And I go, I really don't want to.

I'd rather just put a life vest on. What about boats? Can you get on a boat? Yes, I love boats. I mean, I literally love being on a boat, but I'll always put a life vest on. So it's the fear of being in water, either submerged or not being able to touch the floor. Yes, that's part of it. I mean, I think if I had been in the military, I would have been a foot soldier. I like my feet on the ground. Have you ever lost out on an acting job? Because so often you're asked if you can ride a horse or drive a car.

And I wonder if you've ever lost out on a role because you can't swim. No, I don't think so. And if something were to come to me, that would be like, there was that movie, like The Abyss or something, or The Deep or something, you know, whatever, something like that. I would just go, I'm not doing that. I wouldn't care if I had needed the job desperately, I wouldn't do it. And it's not one of those things, is it? Do you now feel it's sort of too late for you to learn or you just, you've just never had a desire actually to kind of nail it? I have no desire to, none. I don't really like being in the water. If we go away to some sort of tropic place, which I don't really like to do necessarily, I sit on the beach and I sketch. I'll go in up to my waist, as I said, but even snorkeling, I can't even snorkel. I can't conceive that your mouth is closed, but you're breathing and you're gripping onto this plastic thing. Sorry, I was just covering my mouth, sort of like acting out snorkeling by myself. And it was just like,

I just can't. I'm like, yes, those fish are so beautiful. That's great. Let's go eat. You know, I don't care. I don't care. I don't want to see the sea cucumber. I don't want to see the shark. No, thanks. Do you have baths? Can you have a bath? bath yeah i can have a bath yeah i mean it's not that bad it's not no and i will like if we go no if we go to like the do you ever wash the man hasn't showered in years now if we go to like italy and we go out on a boat or something, the Amalfi Coast or something, I'll go off the boat. I'll jump into the water because the water is very saline.

And I'll sort of paddle around for about two minutes. And then I just climb out of the boat. And my wife will be like, why don't you stay in? Why don't you? I'm like, no, that's it. I felt it. It's beautiful. I sort of floated.

Now I'm probably going to drown so I'm getting out you're very feline I've always thought you're quite cat like and that's exactly what oh maybe you're right yeah that's weird I hate cats but thank you what a disappointment I'm so sorry well you can't be perfect you can't no no that's the one imperfection you have yeah this makes me feel so much better because I can swim, but I can't dive. I've never learned how to dive. I'm fearful of it. I don't understand why you would fall headlong towards concrete out of choice.

And people refuse to believe I can't do it. And constantly, I've had so many ex-boyfriends insist that they can teach me. And like, you know, I don't want to be taught. I just don't want to do that. So I feel much better now. Yeah that's the thing and I do find it sort of when people say we were down in the Maldives once with this really beautiful place and this guy was like the diving instructor you know my son took some diving lessons and you know he loved it and all that and the diving instructor kept saying come on on, Stan, you can do it.

And I said, no, I don't want to. And his name was Ken or something. And every time I see him, you know, he's one of those very sort of gung-ho guys. And every time he'd see me and I'm walking around, it's my vacation. And every time he'd see me, come on, we're going to get in the water today, aren't you? And then eventually I was like, hey, Ken, no, we're not. We're not getting in. I'm not doing it.

So go away. And he sort of looked at me like, and I was like, I will never do it. Okay? So fuck off from my vacation. He's not going around the Maldives being like, that's Stanley Tucci. I was like, you can't do that. Like hate that come on come on you're like no no it's weird it's a little like the gordon ramsay thing where what's that show where he's screaming at everybody all kitchen nightmares you know yes i mean if you think about it most of those people

really have no business running a restaurant or being in a kitchen at all so he's sort of like he picks the most vulnerable and then just attacks them and you all so he's sort of like he picks the most vulnerable and then just attacks them and you're like it's sort of like going come on you can do it you know you can walk and the guy's like but i have no legs you know and you're like you don't need legs you know you're like yes you do so anyway i'm going on but you know it seems to be fuck off ken that's what we just need to say more of but i noticed that you said that he called you stan did he automatically do that without your permission because that really probably probably yeah that kind of bugs me yeah not that he has

to call me mr tucci or anything but i don't know something maybe i introduced myself as stan i don't know all i know is i hope he's not there when I go back. I hope he doesn't listen to the podcast either. No, no, I don't think he will. Chances are slim. No, chances are slim. He's always underwater. Exactly. Yeah. Your second failure, Stanley, and this intrigued me because as I mentioned in the introduction,

you have directed your own critically acclaimed films, but your second failure is your failure to direct well. Yes. So why do you categorize that as a failure? Because there are aspects of the films that could have been a lot better with a different director. Or if I had simply been more patient. It's odd because when I write a script or rewrite a script or adapt a book, I'm very patient and it will take me a long time to do it. However, once I'm in there and I'm directing, because I think I know exactly what I want to see and hear, I start to become impatient. I also become obsessed with efficiency and not going over budget. I'm sort of the opposite of most directors.

Do you know what I mean? A lot of directors, they don't care. I really care. If someone says you have this much money to do something, I will do it for that much money or less. And I think that's really important because someone has given you the responsibility with their money to create something. And you said, yes, I can do this. So then you need to do it. So sometimes that takes away from the sort of art of it, I suppose. And I think that I'm sad about that because I think that the movies could be better. There are two movies that I did that I am okay with. One is Big Night, but I was lucky enough to have a

co-director. And the second one is a little movie that really got wonderful reviews that seven people saw called Blind Date, which is a remake of a Theo van Gogh movie. And I do feel with that film that I did what I wanted to do. I watched that film and I'm actually quite okay with it. But I shot the entire film in six and a half days. And that's really the way I like to make a movie.

I realized, you know, we made the movie for a million dollars. This is like, I don't know, 12 years ago or something like that or more. And it's basically a two hander, Patty Clarkson and myself. We shot it in Belgium and we shot the whole thing and takes place basically in a bar. It's a sort of study of identity and loss and grief. It's very dark. I think it's my favourite film that I've made. And it's the only one that I feel actually really works. The others are a little soft in a way.

And as I said, not as well directed as they should be. It's so interesting because it sounds to me as though you have such a sense of responsibility to the other people that you're making the film with and for, that when it's a bigger production, you don't feel you can lean into your own artistic freedom. Whereas perhaps with Blind Date, there was less of that because it was a smaller budget and a tighter shoot. Do you think there's something in that? Yeah, I do. I mean, the first two, three movies I made were bigger budgets, but really when I said bigger, I mean, they were like

a few million or the most was like 8 million or something, which was a fair amount. This is, you know, 20 years ago, but Blind Date to me is the perfect model of how to make an independent movie. You make it for like a million bucks or a million euro, whatever it was, and you shoot it in a very short period of time and it's very contained and it's a real exploration of emotion and they're real actor's pieces. Not that there isn't an aesthetic to it.

It is substantial visually, I think. I think that there's something quite elegant about it visually. But it's the pace at which you move and how calculated you are with what you're doing and yet also being very spontaneous. And I do believe that constraints in budget lead you to be more imaginative. I should just point out that Big Night, which is beloved by many, many people, has a 96% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, which is really unheard of. And it was nominated for the Sundance Grand Jury Prize. And it's a wonderful film about described his job as being a kind of benign dictator where you spend your day constantly having to make decisions so people will come to you with lots of questions and you have to know how to respond say yes or no and then when he came home at the end of the night he would enter the kitchen and he'd still be in that mode

of thinking and his wife would be like you need to calm down because we're not running according to rules is it like that it sounds exhausting having to have solid opinions about everything for an entire day day after day I find it invigorating I really love it and I really miss it I haven't directed a movie now for almost five years I really love it because you use every part of yourself. And I love being able to make those decisions and solve those problems and do it with a wonderful team of collaborators. The last movie I directed was about Alberto Giacometti, and I was lucky enough to have this amazing group of designers and a DOP who were just at the peak of their game. And it was so exciting to be able to work together

and do that. Again, we made the movie for 2.6 million pounds, but I really love that. I think that's really fun. I think that the difficulty a lot of time with directors is a lot of times they're working under the auspices of a studio. So those decisions that they're making have to be passed through a lot of different channels. And when I make a movie, I don't do that. I don't really have an interest in making a studio movie because I see what happens. And I don't want to have all those phone calls. I don't want to have all those conversations. I want the decisions to be mine, mine and with my collaborators, my creative collaborators. Therefore, if the movie fails, it's my fault. It's nobody else's fault. It's my

fault. I'm more than happy to take that responsibility. So I don't have to have a movie fail after I've had all these endless conversations with thousands of executives. The movie fails, but who gets blamed? The director. So I'd rather the failure really be mine. You, as an actor, have worked with some legendary directors, from Sam Mendes to Steven Spielberg. Does everyone come when they direct with their own unique style? Or is there something that links great directors from an actor's point of view, do you think? I think the thing that links great directors is a clarity of vision. And people you mentioned have that, for better or for worse. Not that every movie that each of them make is a great movie, but they know the movie that they want to make. And they're not

afraid to push people to get there. Now, the people that you mentioned, they're all so completely different. Steven Spielberg is like an encyclopedia of film. He only thinks cinematically. And he sort of makes things up on the fly that are absolutely brilliant. His composition is extraordinary. The way he'll move a camera is amazing. Sam also has an incredible clarity of vision, which is evident in his films. If you just look at Road to Perdition, just visually, it's stunning.

And of course, that was Conrad Hall who shot it. I believe it was the last movie he shot. But to hire Connie Hall and then to have Paul Newman, it was just sort of brilliant. And also, I think casting Tom Hanks in that was really brilliant. Sam will spend the most time, because he's a theater director, Sam will spend the most time talking about stuff and talking about the character and sort of rehearsing and reading and all that stuff. about stuff and you know talking about the character and sort of rehearsing and reading and all that stuff Spielberg not as much but he's very specific about what he wants so you just go

sure I'll do that but I think clarity of vision to answer your question is the key thing fascinating I just want to ask you about The Devil Wears Prada because I love it and it's uh I'm sure you're sick of being asked about it but it it is one of those wonderful films that I don't think I'll ever be able to watch it too many times. I don't think I would ever get sick of it. It is a film that I always feel like watching, whatever mood I'm in,

whatever day of the week it is. And I wonder whether you get a sense when you're making a movie like that, that it will become that kind of classic or is it just a lucky accident how it's received you kind of felt that there was something special about it number one just from the script the script was perfect i mean like literally a perfect script and then when you look at that cast that's where i met m and meryl i knew already a little bit i didn't know annie

but it was just this wonderful gelling of all of these perfectly placed pieces and chosen pieces, meaning the designers, the DP, the director, the producers, the locations, the set. I mean, everything was just right. And also David, who directed it, shot it so simply. It's really very simply shot, that movie. If you look at the way a lot of movies are shot today, it's so simple. And he also just knew what to do with the pace of the film and how to balance the tone of the film properly. So it ends up being an absolutely perfect Hollywood movie. Do you really know if it's going to be that when you're in the middle of it no you don't because there are three movies right there's the movie that's written there's the movie that's being

shot and then there's the movie that's edited so you're hoping that as you're shooting it which seems to be going really well you're hoping that in the end they don't fuck it up in the edit and what i mean fuck it up meaning that that's where a lot of times too many cooks get involved. But obviously that was not the case. I loved that movie. I mean, Emily and I just watched it again together for the first time. What? Why did you not Instagram that? I don't know.

Well, we were watching it because we were having a reunion, like an online reunion with Meryl and David and the designer and Annie. So we had to watch it again. And we loved it. I mean, we just loved it again. It was great. Did it alter your own fashion taste? A little bit, but she taught me a great deal. I think I spent more time in my costume fittings than I did actually filming. And I loved it. I love costume fittings anyway. I loved it because she really taught me a lot. This is Patricia Field. Patricia Field, yeah. And she would put pieces together. You'd think,

oh my God, you're never going to put those pants with that. And she'd do it and you'd go, that's amazing. That works perfectly. And you think things are going to clash and it's brilliant. I mean, absolutely brilliant. So do you think she made you more adventurous? Yeah, she did. She expanded the possibilities. I have a tendency to be very sort of monochromatic. And what she did, maybe not necessarily for myself,

as the way I dress a little bit, but really for when I would look at other people, if I buy stuff for my wife or when I'm directing a film, she really opened my eyes to how I can work with the actors and expand my sort of slightly myopic vision of what I think works. I know you've spoken in the past about how when you met Emily Blunt, you knew immediately she was something special. And I just wanted to share with you something that I went through, which is I was sent to interview Emily after the Devil Wears Prada and in my capacity as a print newspaper journalist back then for a Sunday newspaper. And I walked in, not only were we reading the same book at the time, we were both reading East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I was so dazzled by her charisma,

her humour, her intelligence that I essentially fell in platonic love with her through the course of the interview. And at the end, I emerged thinking, I mean, we're going to be best friends because you don't meet people like this that often. And I remember she did something so classy. The person I was with at the time romantically had a crush on her. He was her sort of celebrity crush. And I said, I wouldn't normally ask, but would you mind signing something for him? And she wrote this note and she wrote it to my then boyfriend and said it never would have worked out between us I'm in love with your girlfriend

Emily and I was like oh you are the best person ever obviously we haven't become best friends but but I do think there is something that kind of intangible charisma really is an integral part of being a star yes yes I agree I I agree. I knew it instantly. Because she is so charismatic, because she's so beautiful, but not really necessarily classically beautiful. Her face is always different, but gorgeous. And there's a real intelligence there. And there's a great sense of humor there. And she doesn't take herself too seriously. She's serious about what she does, but she doesn't take herself too seriously. And when she started acting, I mean, when we were doing a scene together, I thought, how is somebody this age, that facile? How do

you do that? And I would just aspire to be like her because she was so good. And there, you know, you see people like that. Saoirse Ronan is somebody like that. I mean, Saoirse was 12 and I was completely in awe of her. This is the lovely bow. Yes, yes. And I can't believe she was 12. Yeah, she was like 12. And I just could not get over this kid.

And Emma Stone was the same thing. I played her father in a movie years ago. And you knew right away, as soon as she started talking, as soon as you met her, you were like, oh my God, you're a huge movie star. And not only that, but you're also a great actor. Because you can be a movie star and not be a great actor, as we know. Do you think you're a great actor?

Sometimes. I hate to say that, but yes, sometimes. No, don't hate to say it. I mean, I do. Sometimes, thank you. Sometimes I'm very proud of what I've done. I look at myself and I think, that's okay, that's pretty good. And then other times I go, hmm, that could have been better. So what's the proudest you've been of a piece of work, do you think? Well, as I said, Blind Date I really like. And I actually even like me in it.

And I think Patty is brilliant. I'm very proud of Supernova, this movie I did with Colin Firth that's, I think, coming out very soon. Which I cannot wait to see. I saw the trailer the other day in the cinema and the trailer made me cry. But tell us what it's about.

Oh, gosh, it's so beautiful. It's about a male couple who, you know, are of a certain age, like me and Colin, 60. And one of them has early onset dementia. And they're going on a road trip just to be together alone and to visit family because they know that things are getting worse. And I won't say more about it, but it was one of the most beautiful scripts I'd ever read. And we made it almost two years ago now. It's gorgeous. And it's just a beautiful, beautiful movie.

And Colin Firth is one of your closest friends, isn't he? So that must be a special experience. Yes, it was great. It was great. I read it. And I said to Harry, who directed it, Harry McQueen, I said, I think Colin should play the other guy. And he said, Oh, yeah, gosh, can you imagine? I was like, yeah. And I, of course, I slipped it to Colin without Harry knowing, which was terrible. Colin read it. And he said, it's beautiful. I said, I know. It's beautiful. So he signed on, luckily. said I know it's beautiful so he signed on luckily have you seen the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice which made Colin Firth famous on this side of the pond I think I did a long time ago oh it's so good is that where he's in the white shirt is that the yes and he emerges from this body of water it'll probably terrify you actually right yeah no he's very good in that yeah he's so brilliant brilliant supernova as you've mentioned is about dementia and mortality and that brings us to your third failure which is a big one and a really beautiful one for you to share. And it is, as you put it, your failure to help Kate, your first wife. Tell us what you mean by that. Well, you know, she was diagnosed when she was,

I think, 43 years old. And this was an incredibly healthy person. She was barely ever sick a day in her life. She was diagnosed at stage four, but had no symptoms other than a tiny little lump. But the cancer had already spread basically practically everywhere. We traveled, as I said, around the world trying to figure out how to just make her better. how to just make her better. And there are two parts to this, I suppose. The most profound failure was a selfish act, which was I could not be with her when she died. She died in our house and I knew that if I were in bed next to her or, you know, by the bed next to her and was there when she passed away, that I probably, that I wouldn't be able to function and wouldn't be able to take care of the kids. So I began sort of almost like a few days before to remove myself emotionally. remove myself emotionally. And I had to do it because knowing me, I would have been plagued with that moment. I would have taken that moment into my body and I wouldn't have been able to

take care of the kids. So I started to remove myself and I feel that's the bigger failure. I suppose in some ways it's a success because I was able to, you know, steal myself and get on and take care of the kids and start to figure out how we were going to organize our new life. But it was so awful that I just couldn't be there for it. And I remember being on our patio and looking, I could see our master bedroom, there was a balcony. And I remember when she passed away, there were friends there. And it was interesting because they were all women who were in the room with her, my stepdaughter and a friend of ours who's a nurse who was administering morphine to her and a couple other friends. And I remember them, I was standing on

the patio with other friends. And I remember the French doors being opened and the sheets being taken off the bed and the ambulance had come and all the windows being opened and aired out like letting air into the room and almost like letting her out I never saw her again I think wanting to save her, trying to help, you just can't do it. And then you just feel awful. I'm a little better about it now, but the guilt was so profound that I couldn't be there and that I couldn't save her. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

Oh, thank you. Thanks. Were you able to talk to Kate about that, about the reason for your emotional distancing? Or was it kind of beyond that point? No, she wasn't really terribly cognizant at that point. So, no. Recently, a few years ago, a very good friend of mine died. My friend Steve Buscemi, his wife Jo, and we were all very, very close. And she died of cancer.

And I went to New York to see her. And she was so thin. And she was just sort of laying. And friends were there. And you'd sort of go into the room and see her. And every now and again, she might hear you. And she might say something. But Steve was so brave. And he was with her until the very end as she literally just faded away

and i thought that bravery was just incredible and his sense of peace that that he had that i in no way had i didn't have that at all. For months, for years, I kept imagining that she would come back. I still think I see her. I still dream about her. She's not very nice to me in the dreams, which is very upsetting. Really? Yeah. I wake up and I feel so awful. She just is very dismissive of me. And I'm so happy to see her you know the dreams are so real and she's like and then she's always she's either with somebody else or she's just not really interested which I think I'm like but why why can't I have a really nice dream about her so I'm laughing but it's like it's sort of just like, you know, salt in the wound, you know? Yeah.

I mean, that sounds to me like a representation of your own guilt and your own self-loathing. That's you projecting. That's not actually a message from her. No, I think you're probably right. Yes, yes. Do you believe in an afterlife in any form? No, but as Woody Allen said, I am bringing a change of underwear. Not really, no. I don't think so.

So how old were your children when Kate died? Camilla was seven and the twins were nine. And how do you continue functioning after something that traumatic? How do you live with that grief and raise your children? How did you do it, Stanley? You can't be afraid to ask for help. And yet you have to know when to tell people to sort of keep their distance. The kids went to therapy straight away. It's really about

having a community that's going to help you, meaning family and friends. That's really, really important. But you have to be the one to structure that because everybody deals with grief differently and everybody had a different relationship with Kate, meaning the adults. And sometimes people will have a tendency to romanticize a person to sort of play into the sort of more maudlin aspects of loss and some people will do the opposite and sort of like you know buck up stiff upper lip and all that so you have to be the one to kind of regulate that and oversee it and then you have to create a new structure for them because kids need and want structure. So the first thing was to hire people who would be able to help me run the household.

And I also knew that I wasn't going to work for a long period of time, that I was just going to stay home, get everybody back on track, and then I'd be able to go to work. And luckily, I was able to do that financially. Those are the most important things is to keep to work. And luckily, I was able to do that financially. Those are the most important things is to keep a structure. A lot of it is the same structure. But as I said, with new people, and always encouraging them to talk about it. And did you have space within that necessary pragmatism and caring for your children to process your own feelings at some point? Or was it one of those things that you delayed and that kind of hit you years later? No, it kept hitting me. I did speak to a therapist, you know, a shrink about it a little bit.

But the hard thing was, you know, they say, well, you know, you're grieving. And you go, yeah, no, I know. I know I'm grieving. You know, well, these things happen. You know, what are you going to say? I mean, there's really only so much you can say. And I guess, yes, you do go through those five stages of grief or loss or, you know. But you kind of have to really go through them. I cried a lot by myself and put the kids to bed and then just sort of go and fall apart

for a bit. It was very hard to go through all of her belongings. I still, how many years later, have things of hers that I just can't get rid of. It's taken years. And even here recently, in the last couple of years, going through photos and going through objects and whatever, you know, you end up just falling apart in the middle of the night in my office, you know, in the back of the garden by myself. I've been very lucky. I had so many people, so many wonderful friends help me. My parents were incredible. My stepdaughter was great. And it's really just a matter of just pushing through it and eventually not blaming yourself and not having that survivor's

guilt. What was Kate like? She was amazing. She was very shy. She was incredibly smart, very well-read. She was a great equestrian. She loved the outdoors. She hated wearing shoes. She hated makeup, and she hated dressing up. The complete opposite of me. I don't like to wear makeup, but I like to dress up and wear shoes. I think I would sleep in my shoes if I could. She was an amazing mother.

She was a really great cook. She became a social worker, and then she got her certificate as a mediator. She wanted to study international law when she first got pregnant with her first kids, with my stepchildren. And she gave up that dream to have two kids. And she wanted to study international law. And she wanted to mediate between the Palestinians and the Israelis. That was her dream. Her thinking was very high powered, as opposed to her husband, who just wanted to make people laugh. I was about to say that puts what the rest of us do into some kind of perspective. I know, I know. I said to her once, I said, Kate, you know, you're really so amazing. You help so

many people, you want to help so many people, you're a great mother, you're a great Kate you know you're really so amazing you help so many people you want to help so many people you're a great mother you're a great you know friend you're amazing I said what do I do but bring joy to millions oh god I mean one of the things that I loved finding out when I was researching for this interview is that Kate is very much part of your life with Felicity in the, there are photographs around, you talk about her a lot. And I think that's a very beautiful thing and it must have at points been potentially a tricky dynamic to navigate that when you get remarried. Did you feel at any level guilty for quote unquote moving on? Oh my God, yes.

Terribly guilty. Yeah. I mean, for a long time, it was not easy for Felicity. You know, it was very hard. At first, kids will be really accepting and then they'll start to push away and then one will be accepting and one won't be and won't be. And I was the same. I mean, I'd be so sort of, you know, loving and affectionate and then I would pull away because I would feel guilty. I felt strange going away for the first time on vacation without Kate. Everything started to feel strange. But Felicity was so amazingly patient and loving to both me and the kids that she taught us that you don't have to feel bad. It's okay. And she's always a part of your life. But things have to move forward. You can remember the person, but you can't romanticize the person.

And that is really the key thing. And there were family members who did that. And that's just not good. It's not healthy. But Felicity was amazing. And in so many ways, she's like Kate. She's very loving, is a great listener, very patient, thinks before she speaks, unlike her husband. And it's just an amazing stepmom, amazing mom, and brilliant at what she does. hearing you talk about both Felicity and Kate and I can't thank you enough for being so generous as to talk about that I know it will help a great many people and before we come to a close I want to change the tone and the pace somewhat by asking you about one thing that I know has caused disagreement in both of your marriages, which is a timpano. So for the uninitiated, what is a timpano? Okay, a timpano or timpano or timbalo. No, no, no. Timpano is how we pronounce it. You're pronouncing it correctly. But that's how my family pronounce it. A lot of people say timpano, but it's also can be known as a timbalo, okay, which is also, they're all sort of drums, right, the word for drum. So a timpano in our family is you make a sort of dough that's sort of like a pizza pasta-like dough. I don't know. What am I doing?

You're going to edit this out. And then you take an enamel basin and you fill it with pasta and ragu and salami and provolone cheese and parmigiano and romano and eggs, hard-boiled eggs, and then egg yolks. I mean, it is like a heart stopper. And then you cover it all up and you bake it. And then you take it out of the oven and you let it cool and then you flip it upside down and you take the enamel basin off and you're left with this gorgeous golden looking thing that you then cut open and you see all the sort of rows of pasta. You know, it's just beautiful. It's impossible to make. It's frustrating. When it works, it's great.

When it doesn't, you want to shoot yourself. And it's what we had every Christmas. And it caused great strife every Christmas because my father had it and it was a tradition and we had it. But, of course, not everyone likes it. And it's so heavy that you can't eat anything after it. heavy that you can't eat anything after it. But of course, so the traditional Sunday ham, goose, whatever, was just a kind of afterthought. Kate hated timpano. It screws up the timing of every other part of the meal because they're very fickle. And I wrote about this in the book, as you know, and I thought Felicity would react differently to timpano and she didn't.

She had the exact same reaction to it, which was, oh, that fucking timpano. So if people read the book, they'll see this, our Christmas story, which I think is actually very funny. It's hilarious. It is an absolutely beautiful dish when you get it right, but you've just got to serve it on its own with a salad, and that's it. I mean, I have to say, so I had never heard of a timpano and so I was moved by your book to go and Google it. It looks absolutely unhinged. It's basically like a massive pork pie made out of

pasta, but with loads of other stuff inside it. It's an extraordinary thing to behold. Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's it it there are many different versions of this dish they can be quite delicate you can make them with rice inside and they're wrapped in eggplant oh no that sounds nice aubergine which is really nice and delicate you can make them with a dough but inside might be a pasta like a thin spaghetti with the meat sauce which they make it in sicily although that one might be wrapped in eggplant too. There are so many different versions of it. It's a really wonderful, beautiful little thing. But our version is, I mean, it is so heavy. However, I crave it because there's a huge amount of salt in it, which I love. And I sort of can't stop eating it,

which is really gross. But isn't it right that Dr. Fauci makes timpano? He does. And I read that. My dad had sent me this article and I was like, oh my God. So I sent Dr. Fauci, who's a hero, let's face it. I mean, I think he's kind of amazing. I sent him our cookbooks and a note just saying, thank you so much for, you've helped everybody get through this. And so here's a gift from our family to yours. He loves making it every Christmas. He's like obsessed with it. I like that.

And he's a doctor, so he must know it's good for you. Exactly. It's probably just the secret to his long-lasting health. That's right. He's 80 and he looks like he's 60. Yeah. Exactly. Just pasta wrapped in pasta with some meat in it as well.

There you go. That's it yeah Stanley Tucci you have been such a delight you might not be able to swim you might never learn how to be able to swim but you have so many other talents and you are such a delightful integrity filled man to talk to and I cannot thank you enough for doing me the honor of coming on How to Fail no well it was my honor and thank you for all of your kind words. I was really excited to do it. I'm a very big fan of yours and thank you for it. Stop! Thank you. It's true. It's true. That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. No, it's absolutely true. I think you're amazing. What you

do and how you do it is just brilliant and effortless and you just make it seem so easy and make everybody feel so comfortable. And that's great. This episode of How to Fail is sponsored by CB2. Feel good. CBD. Are you one of the 44% of Brits that gets six hours or fewer of sleep each night? 23% of female Britons record that they feel tired all the time, followed by 35% who feel tired often. I feel their pain. CB2 have hundreds of reviews about how their CBD oil has changed

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