How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S7, Ep1 How to Fail: Andrew Scott

Episode Date: January 1, 2020

HAPPPPPY NEW YEAAARRRR! I hope you've woken up with a sense of rejuvenating freshness about the year ahead, but if you haven't - if you're hungover or feeling weird or sad or discombobulated or tired or like you haven't achieved enough - then fear not. You are simply caught up in this messy business of being human and that's fine. There is no need for a new year to mean a new you. The old you is great! The old you has stuff to say. And to remind you of this, I have the most wondrous of all special guests to help you usher in the first days of 2020.Andrew Scott, as well as being an utterly lovely person, is an astonishingly talented and versatile actor. Yeah, ok, you might just have heard of him from the little-known, moderately successful television show that is Fleabag, in which he played the Hot Priest and somehow made 'KNEEL' the sexiest word in the English language, but he's also been in Bond movies and Shakespeare plays and in some of the best television shows and films of the last decade. I'd list them all here but there wouldn't be enough room.He joins me to kick off a new decade and to talk about his failure at a drama competition aged 10 (a failure that ended up teaching him about the arbitrary nature of criticism), his failure to complete his degree and - his words - his 'failure to be heteronormative'. Along the way, we talk about the judgemental language of sexuality (why do gay people have to 'come out' when it implies you're hiding something? Why refer to someone as 'openly gay' when you wouldn't say 'openly Irish'? What does 'casual sex' really mean?), why acting should be playful, why growing older is an act of un-learning the things you think you know and why he still feels bad about a pizza delivery guy.I love this man. I know you will too.*The Sunday Times Top 5 bestselling book of the podcast, How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong is out NOW in paperback and available to buy here. * This episode is sponsored by Secret Spa - the mobile app that provides you with all your beauty treatments in the comfort of your own home. Now covering London and Manchester, for 15% off your first booking, use the code HOWTOFAIL on the app or via the website secretspa.co.uk*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:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayANDREW SCOTT IS NOT ON SOCIAL MEDIA. (Yet another reason to love him).      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamex. Benefits vary by card, other conditions apply. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that 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 this week has many claims to fame. One of them is that he inspired a 162% spike in internet searches for religious porn and a 25% increase in sales of canned gin and tonic after his heart-rending, gut-wrenching, gin-swilling performance as the hot priest in Fleabag. But beyond the dog collar, Andrew Scott has been a highly acclaimed actor on stage and screen for many years, winning both a Laurence Olivier Award and a BAFTA for his efforts. In fact, he got nominated for another award as I was writing this introduction, a Golden Globe, no less. It's a long way from one of his first roles as an unnamed corpse on the beach in Steven Spielberg's Second World War epic, Saving Private Ryan. Since then,

he's played Moriarty alongside Benedict Cumberbatch's Sherlock on TV, starred in Pride on the big screen, and taken on Hamlet at the Almeida. More recently, he appeared in 1917, directed by Sam Mendes, and it was announced that he'd be playing the psychopathic Tom Ripley in a new adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's famous novels, a casting decision that I, for one, believe is pure genius. One journalist wrote earlier this year that Scott's signature as an actor is to unsettle you. And it's true that you never know quite what he's going to do next, which makes him an enticing prospect as an interviewee. which makes him an enticing prospect as an interviewee.

He once said that, I think the mark of a proper adult is someone who is really able to say with confidence, I don't know. It's to ask questions without hope of an answer. Andrew Scott, welcome to How to Fail. Thanks. Thank you very much indeed. Well, you're among friends here if you're asking questions and don't know the answer. Well I thought that as much I do feel comforted by that. Do you actually think that growing older leading on from that is a kind of act of

unlearning like all the social conditioning that you've grown up with so that you can become playful again? Oh my god I mean absolutely, absolutely. I do. One of my favorite quotes is from Picasso. He says, I spent my whole life trying to paint like a child. I think that's really true as an artist. And I think it's really true as a human being, just to be able to sort of unlearn all the things that you take in as a child.

I think that's actually been one of the great joys in my life of recent years, is to be able to go, oh, I don't have to carry that with me anymore. I can just put that down. And just to be able to sort of say, yeah maybe not maybe not I remember a couple of years ago when the bible was 800 years old in new testament they were doing a reading of the bible reading the whole thing from start to finish the whole new testament and I played Jesus

it was it was about five years ago and I thought thought, oh, well, because I'm sort of, you know, I was brought up Catholic, but I'm not so religious anymore. I thought, no, I don't really want to do that. And then I thought, you know what, I have never really read the Bible, you know, from start to finish. And what an opportunity to read it. And I read the whole thing through. And it's really extraordinary how so much of the things you think you know about what the Bible says you actually don't know. And it seems so extraordinary to me that reading this thing, which basically says, be kind to one another over and over again. You know, there are some dodgy things in the

Old Testament about, you know, misogynistic, weird things. But in the New Testament, it's just like, do unto others as they would do unto you. And how something has been taken, you know, that expression as bible and i remember doing the curtain call and thinking and this is the word of the lord and i remember thinking or maybe not you know just a collection of people taking down taking down things and going yep and then to sort of take that as gospel take the gospel as Bible or the Bible as gospel seems to be so extraordinary. And that's the thing I think really that terrifies me the most in life, the idea that something is completely immovable and that there is no deriving from

the truth of something that was said. I find that terribly frightening. You bring up the Bible there and you mentioned that you were raised Catholic. How did it feel then taking on the role of the hot priest? Did it bring up stuff from your childhood? Did you feel a sense of guilt almost? I know you're not practicing anymore. It didn't because we were doing some quite subversive things in the church. You know, it's quite weird.

Even to film in a church is quite weird because, you know, you have people there with their sandwiches and the boom and the mics and all the equipment. And you think, oh, this is quite an extraordinary thing to do in a church. So to do what we did in the church did seem a little, seem a little transgressive. But no, I think I'd put a lot of my rage and my questioning about the church, I put that down. And actually, in talking to Phoebe, when we were first talking about this character, so much of the unhelpful thing, attitude towards people in the church on screen or in drama, to my mind, comes from extremism to talk about the sort of evil of the church, which of course exists. But what we were interested in is to sort of explore a man

who is a genuine human being, who's actually a very good person and who likes his job and is good at his job and gets a lot of solace and joy from being a good priest. But that begs the question, you know, what happens when something really threatens that, which is his real genuine, almost instant love for this person? And what happens when you feel that you are desexualized? You know, something that I've often felt, which is that I don't think it's possible to desexualize any human being. I think that's a great danger. So to be able to explore that was really, really exciting, you know, because everybody has an attitude towards sexuality, whether you're practicing or whether

you're asexual or not, whatever, you have an attitude towards it. And I think the most insidious thing for me about growing up in Catholic Ireland was that you were not allowed to speak about it you weren't allowed to think about it you weren't allowed to mention it not just as a gay person but any people of any sexual orientation I think it's incredibly damaging and I think in a way it's led to the people's obsession in a sense with sex you know in these days. Well talking of obsession people are obsessed with fleabag yeah how has that been for you being part of it i'm sure you're incredibly grateful and it's wonderful but is it also a bit weird what a great question no do you know what it's

not weird i've i've been in things before which which I've thought, that's weird. I can't believe people love this this much. Like Hamlet. Kidding, kidding. Exactly. What are they into this? How loud of nonsense for it? No, it's, I find it comforting actually that people like it so much because it is about messiness in our life and that things manifest themselves in the world in such a surprising way. Love manifests itself. It's one of the reasons I loved Call Me By Your Name. I loved the physical juxtaposition of those two people. You think that it isn't just these two people who look similar to each other that

fall in love. I love that idea that people fall in love or are attracted to things that are completely the opposite and that love manifests itself in a really extraordinary way and that somebody who can be sexually frank doesn't have to look dress and quote unquote provocative clothing or that that life is wears a disguise so much of the time and the fact that that's been recognized not just here but really in america they really go for it is wonderful to me because i've always believed that comedy is no less an art form because it's funny, you know, because you can smuggle so many transgressive and progressive ideas through comedy. And I think Phoebe really does that. What was it like wearing priest clothes?

Weird. I didn't like it. I played a priest once before in a Ken Loach film a couple of years ago. And I played one, actually, I've played a few priests in my time on the stage. Not for any particular reason. You just, you know, I like a couple of years ago and I played one actually I've played a few priests in my time on the stage and not for any particular reason you just you know I like a bit of tailoring so I just wanted to sort of take in the sleeves and like shorten the trousers is there is there a fleabag whatsapp group where every time you get nominated for an award there are lots of like balloon emojis exactly no but you know what? We maybe should do that.

There is a little WhatsApp group, actually. But you know what? It makes it so much fun because they're all such a lovely gang of people. Because sometimes going to those award shows, it's actually not fun. It sort of appears like fun, but it's quite stressful. You're a mix between intimidated and it sounds kind of disingenuous to say, but sometimes you just think I really do not want to get up in front of these people because it's so scary I mean maybe that's

just me there's a shy gene in my body which makes me think I cannot get up in front of all these famous people and so when there are people around and Phoebe's really good at all that kind of stuff I think it's something I really admire in her she really knows how to live and to enjoy the success of something and I've really learned that from her actually to really just go yeah this is great this is wonderful like celebrate it so you and I have known each other for a few years and you don't know what I'm about to tell you but we had lunch in LA a while back and it was when I was single and our mutual friend John Butler was trying to set me up with someone who came along to the lunch yes who showed no interest in me and I had no interest in

him because you and I ended up sitting next to each other and I had the most delightful time because I was chatting to you and it was so nice and I came out of that lunch and I said to John I was like basically Andrew Scott's my ideal man. He's charismatic. He's funny. He's kind. He's witty. He's like hench, but not too much. And it looks like he's an obsessive workoutaholic.

Yeah, I came away just thinking, oh, it's just such a shame that's not going to happen. But what I love about your role in Fleabag is that everyone else has seen that. And I think Phoebe said you have the charisma of 10 people in one she did say what a thing to say my god I'll take that which 10 people I guess that's very true which 10 do you feel charismatic oh wow um I'll tell you what I feel now is that I feel more authentic I think what troubled me for a while, I've got to say, was a lot of the parts that I played when I was, I think probably it's, I think it's no mistake really. I think when I was a little bit less comfortable with myself, I played quite sort of

freakish characters. I was attracted to them. It's a really weird thing. I can see now that I kind of use the parts that I've played. And even when I started acting, I was always very confident about kind of turning stuff down, even when I had no work. And to be able to explore parts of my personality through my work, I think I kind of used it because I think maybe I was hiding a little bit myself. I used my work to be able to really express myself. So when I was in my early twenties, I had quite an innocent little face and then played lots of great parts in the theatre. But then what sort of started to happen was I was really drawn to like those kind of villainous characters became sort of what I was known for, certainly on screen. And that was exciting. And

there was a way to do that and you could be audacious and my God, I'm very grateful for it. But after a little while, I definitely felt like, you know, that's so far away from who I am as a person. So it began to trouble me a little bit that that sort of more humane side of me wasn't coming out. And I felt like in a way that acting for me is such a way of telling the truth. It's the lie that tells the truth, I always think.

I really wanted to play love and romance and I don't know stuff that's a little closer to myself something I'm really fascinated by is storytelling and how we think we're very sophisticated as adults you know we think like when we tell children stories that they're so they absorb them so well and actually as adults we really do the same thing because it's such an interesting thing about casting that if you tell somebody if you create a story that's where you say that person is really scary and you use them very sparingly and then they arrive and people when you meet them on the street go oh my god there's that kind of scary person and if you tell the person particularly

through the female gazes that happen in feedback that person is attractive or that they have a certain charisma about them then they believe you know so you know we're very susceptible to storytelling we really are particularly when it's really good storytellers like phoebe or whoever else it is so in a way it's storytelling and in a way it's me so it's nice that that can exist but to me acting is to explore lots of different parts of yourself with real fearlessness but still remain intact you're still okay so you can really go there so I've always found great joy in that you're so good at answering questions you answer questions like a storyteller because you start off and then it goes somewhere and you don't know how it's connected to theeller because you start off and then it goes somewhere and you

don't know how it's connected to the thing that you've asked and then it comes around in the most profound way well do you know what i have a terrible habit of not finishing sentences i really i really i did that on purpose i did that purpose no but i really do i go off in lots of um lots of lots of things so I'm glad I finished that sentence eventually let's talk about your failures so your first failure is going back a few years it's your failure at a drama competition for children age 10 yeah well the reason I say that is because it really affected it's still you know it's interesting that you're talking about awards and stuff and it sort of speaks to me about reviews and all that kind of stuff which is competition in children particularly in you know art so when I was a kid in Dublin it's something

that a lot of people from Ireland actually maybe around England a little bit as well there's a competition called the Fesh which is the Irish word for festival and what you do is that there are various categories so you could have poetry under 10 you could have drama under eight you could have literally 100 children get up and say the same poem so it's completely torturous for the parents and they get up and say a poem in a very brightly lit kind of hall in may and there's no atmosphere in the hall and there's an adjudicator at the top of the hall in front of the stage with her little pen and she's usually quite a prim woman in her late middle age and they pull back the curtain that's a competitor number 10 an extract from Romeo and Juliet Juliet speaking and somebody comes out and it's somebody in their mom's nightie you know wailing

whatever and then you do a bit like that. It's the most extraordinary thing. It's really my first taste of creating an atmosphere where there really is no atmosphere, you know. It's not an atmosphere. You can see the audience, you know, there's usually someone's brother or sister, toddler making loads of noise. But if you could create an atmosphere in that place,

you know, it was a real, real achievement. You would be terrified going in. You know, usually achievement you would be terrified going in you know usually your mum would be there and you know there'd be people from other sort of drama classes or there'd be people from your own class and then she'd get up at the end and she'd say and these are the people that I'd like to recall and then you'd have to go up and do another little poem or whatever and then there'd be third place second place and first place so my very first experience of probably even being on the stage myself I I had to pretend to be a cowboy. He was walking through and he was really, really thirsty.

And when he sees this oasis and he goes, oh, my God, it's amazing. And I remember I had to take off my jeans and my top. It's kind of creepy when you think about it now. And jump into this pretend oasis. This is such a challenge. Such a challenge such a challenge i mean when i think about it anyway so i got to the thing and it was all going really well and i really had found real liberty because i was a really shy child i had a lisp and so so i found acting really i don't know i didn't find it really hard when once i was kind of on the stage and i practiced and it was all going really really well then i saw this oasis i was like oh my god it was like a cowboy and i tried to pull

down my jeans and my jeans that i was wearing it was probably 1988 were so tight i feel like they just stopped at my thighs and i just couldn't move them and i hadn't obviously just practiced and they were there for ages i I'm like, on it went. And I had no idea at that stage what to do. You know, you just don't take off your jeans. That's what you would do now. You just could jump into this fake oasis with your jeans on. But for some reason I thought, no, you have to have the jeans over.

Or else like, why would, why would this cowboy get in, you know, and wreck these jeans? So on it went minute one minute two you just went in your pants no no half down yeah so i was trying to pull up pull them pull them on and then i got one leg off one leg off and so on it went i mean can you imagine the mums in the audience they must have been in hysterics laughing but for me it was absolutely mortifying excruciating I could feel it going up into my face and then eventually I think I got them I got them off and then I went on I continued blah blah blah and I came off with that sort of sucker punch thing of going oh no oh no no no and so of course I got I think maybe I wasn't placed or whatever it was really devastating to me.

You know, when you're a kid and people get, and you think, I did this really well. I know that I, you know, had I not done that, you know, it was just something, I think she might've mentioned it in my adjudicators report. And then on it goes. So every year you did one and then like you go and you do Richard III when you're 16 and under 16. And I remember in those competitions sometimes you do really really well I remember another one very particularly where where I knew it was really good I knew

what I was doing was good and the adjudicator I remember I could sense that she just for the first two minutes of what I was doing she was finishing off the report of the previous kid and I remember thinking she's not looking she's I know she's not looking at me and I came off and I was like she wasn't looking at what you were doing and I got placed third or something and so all that idea of competition in acting in one way was exciting and it teaches you about acting in a certain way but in another way I think it's quite dangerous because I do see the worthlessness actually of everybody liking you and you being first sometimes I've been got really good reviews for stuff that I thought was okay and sometimes things are praised that are completely dependent on who that adjudicator is that might be writing an adjudicator's report for somebody else you know

what I mean yeah that you do see that it's filtered through whoever that person whoever the panel are an awards jury or whoever the journalist is or whatever it is of course it has to be filtered through but that's not the way they're viewed and sometimes I think the old saying of no prizes no punishments is a really interesting one and I do think that the way we look at the way art is judged it could be a bit more interesting I think of course it's about selling you know whatever the product is that old cliche where people say it's just a thrill to be nominated when people say that and actually do you know what it really is because what anybody wants I don't know if you

find that in your field but what everybody wants is to feel I was included in that I was included in one of the people who made a bit of a difference during the year in so for example with Fleabag yeah I do feel really proud of that I do feel it was a very special thing that deserves to be recognized if somebody thought that something was slightly better than that that doesn't really matter I just think just putting things in and saying let's celebrate loads of things in a slightly different way might be more still as entertaining because that's what an award show for the most part is and not just this idea of the best the second best the third best and oh that's a failure if you didn't win and you know even the way we talk about success is very much they won that they did that I don't know a question awards and reviews even though it's something like

all artists you do feel seen when you go oh my god that's really exciting yesterday when when we got nominated for awards I was delighted because you think oh my god they've really seen it and when you do that with people that you admire it's cool but I know that feeling of being ignored at awards and I know that I felt oh maybe in the past oh maybe that wasn't as good as I thought it was so for any of the other actors who don't get nominated it doesn't I really think that good work genuine good work goes beyond words I don't think anybody really remembers who won what I don't think do you I mean I mean I remember what I won keeping a constant tally yeah no you're right but do you think other people would do you think only because i keep telling them no uh no i think you're absolutely right and i think it's quite interesting that

this year has seen the awarding of two notable prizes in a different way so the booker prize went to two winners yeah the turner prize was jointly shared amongst the four i find those end of year lists really annoying well it's reductive isn't it yeah and I also totally agree with you with that profound lesson that you learned age 10 that people bring their own stuff to it there's always so much other stuff going on yeah there's politics as well there's the kind of politics of adjudication plus that person might be the friends of the other person and or and and they bring their own cultural history to it I think what it is is that it's like you're incredibly vulnerable as an artist you really

are really vulnerable you you know there's this new thing where people saying don't care about what people think about you which I think is so insidious it's an insidious thing to say it's of course you care about what people think about you of course you do you shouldn't care what everybody thinks about you but you do care and I suppose it's really in touching that and you know I have won a few awards in my time and maybe I'm saying that because I have the benefit of going okay well that doesn't really mean anything and I know that it matters I still believe that putting yourself out there whatever you do is really important and I just hate the idea of people feeling small because of actually quite

capitalistic reasons for the most part I think what perhaps what you're saying is that when you win an award that's great and it brings the work to more people but that you shouldn't attach your personal sense of self or worth that's it to winning it that's it and that's a real challenge I know on the day it's one of the great things actually about talking to people directly you know I love talking to people people are my great sort of passion in life and so when somebody says to you I really enjoyed that or they write write you a letter that is I mean as you know it's the most wonderful thing you know to feel like oh I've helped in some way. You've connected. Yeah. Will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?

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And actually, as an artist like you are, you need that. You need that breathable layer of skin that allows people in and that you can connect with other people. But how do you cope with that then? Do you have strategies in place? I don't have strategies. I am definitely susceptible to that. I definitely care what people think. I suppose what I want is to tell the truth. I really do want to be able to tell the truth. And I think it's important that it costs me. You want to say what's really true to you so when people dismiss you or they they slag off the way you look or the way you act or whatever it is that does hurt me but that's the game that

I'm in and I do find it troubling now I suppose it's about identity and people finding their identity as individuals and if you believe in yourself that's's the main thing. And I don't know, I think it's really important to be able to listen to the right people with an open heart. And sometimes it's certainly my biggest challenge. You know, it goes down to the nature of coolness, which I've always found disgusting. The idea of somebody being cool. Just going back for a minute to that audition, age 10, in the drama competition where you're struggling to get your jeans off, was your mum in the audience? Oh, yeah oh yeah yeah and what did she say afterwards I would say during it she was probably her head was probably under her jumper and she would get very nervous for things like that but she would have been great at saying no you it's okay you did really well

and all that that both my parents were very good at knowing what each of us were good at. You know, I was very sensitive as a kid, very sensitive. When I think about it, I used to be able to watch Children in Need or anything like that, or Comic Relief, because I would just be bawling. I just couldn't cope with the fact that... I remember her bringing me into her bed when i was she'd heard me and she was i remember her saying it's not your fault it's not your fault so it's a

really weird um really weird thing i think he can be too sensitive though i think sometimes yeah you gotta go come on i ordered pizza last night and uh the the guy i was kind of to buzz him up because i live in an apartment. He came up and he was like, I've got the pizza. And I was like, okay, just buzz up. And I buzzed him in and then he rang again. He said, yeah, I'm still here. I said, yeah, just when you hear the thing, just buzz up.

And he was like, okay, I'm trying to do my best. And I was like, oh my God, I think he's really angry with me. So I got out his tip and then he came up to me and he had the pizza. And he's sort of just staring at me. And i handed him the tip because i don't need your tip and i was like oh jesus and had the pizza i couldn't eat that pizza because i thought i thought i hope he's listening he's not listening he hates me uh but but you know it's that really oversensitive thing and then you just be like let that go like what that's got nothing to do with you you know what i mean it's fine can i tell you something that will make you feel better

which is that over the weekend my boyfriend and his 10 year old daughter made gingerbread people and there was one particular gingerbread character which had been patterned with icing and he had braces and like little shorts and my boyfriend was like would you like one and i was like oh i like little shorts. And my boyfriend was like, would you like one? And I was like, oh, I like this little guy. And my boyfriend was like, yes, he's braces. And I was like, I can't eat him. I can't eat him.

I can't eat braces. He was like, don't be ridiculous. And he like made me eat braces. And it's still on my mind. Emotional over-identification. Yeah, over-identification over identification i mean it's something you definitely need you definitely you don't get one without the other you can't do i don't think you can do what i do well without having the thing that i always say for that an actor really needs

the two things that you really need is an imagination i'm really strong i've definitely got a very strong imagination god knows that's true but the other thing that I really think you need is a sense of humor. Acting without humor is, to me, is just bad manners. It's terrible. The reason I think it's terrible is because I think it's not the way that human beings work. And that's what our job is, is to recreate what human beings are really, really like. So the funny things people say when they are in extraordinary circumstances desperate circumstances I just find incredibly moving because it is the one thing you know with my dog or whatever who I adore the thing that separates human beings from animals is our ability to be able to see the absurd I mean it's such a distinct human quality so I definitely feel like you can measure someone's humanity

almost by their sense of humor in some ways you know what I mean it shows this unique thing that we have you know I'm not saying that my dog isn't fun he's able to have fun but he's to be able to recognize the absurdness of life it's one thing that my mum said to me actually I remember I was going through quite a difficult time she wrote me a letter and she said that what you have, I'll never forget it. She said that you have a five-star sense of humor, which will lead you well through life. I knew that I had a good sense of humor, but when somebody tells you that, somebody that you love so much,

when somebody tells you that, then you sort of become it. You know, that's what we do when we're kids. Encouragement is such an important thing. Both my parents work with young people and so does my sister they're teachers in various forms and encouragement just a little bit of encouragement is so vital and so many people don't get it I do these kind of comic con things you know where you go and you meet all the fans and that's why I much prefer to do that than speaking to people on Instagram and if you just say even if you just say to somebody I really like your costume and people who are can sometimes be quite vulnerable even the fact that you're even noticing that they're even wearing a costume can brighten up their day and I don't know I find it really moving that just that that's all we need is just a little bit of encouragement anyways that's quite on a tangent there good no fellow

feeling and encouragement I love it you're the middle of three children and your book ended with two sisters yeah both of whom I've had the joy of meeting and I've met your lovely mum who came to her to fail life she did oh my god she hasn't stopped talking about it I love her yeah what was it like being in the middle of two sisters oh amazing amazing we're really really, my older sister, there's only 11 months between us. And Sarah's really big into sport. She's the head of sport at a school. And then Hannah is seven years younger than me. And she's an actor too. And she's very sort of artistic. And yeah, we're a very, very close family. They're definitely like my best friends, you know. Your second failure is your failure at Trinity College in Dublin as an academic tell us more yes my academic years well I was at a very very academic school in Dublin like the majority of people I think 90% of the people maybe even 95% went on to third level education were you know

very clever guys so when it came to third level education I'd done my first movie when I was my second last year in in school when I was about 17. So sorry to interrupt acting was always something that you wanted to do then? Yeah it really was when I was about seven or eight I used to watch those big MGM films and I just I just loved it and then I was taken to these drama classes because I was quite shy and I had a lisp first of all I was thinking the elocution way to go because I used to say seashell seashells because I had quite a bad sort of it was sort of fine I grew out of it and I was a bit shy so mum thought oh drama classes would be a way to go and then I loved it even though I found it scary and so then when I was

17 I got my first part in a movie because they came to these drama classes. So when it came to leaving school, I was already sort of bitten by the bug. So I thought the best thing to do would be to go to Trinity College in Dublin, which is a very good university in Dublin, and study the very secure making and definitely kind of get a job out of degree in drama

and theatre studies it's logical it's logical that's good it's not going to make that's going to be a really really something to fall back on in times of poverty so anyway I did do that I got into Trinity when I was there and it was a very quite academic course. And it's something that I'd never been, I'd never associated. I think it's something that people really forget about. It's something that I say a lot, but when they say, we'd like you to play this part, playing, that's what the requirement is. You're required to be playful. You're required to be playful.

And so when acting is spoken of in this very serious way and why I don't like acting without any sense of humour, I find it irritating because I just think it's not intelligent to approach acting without a sense of play. So anyway, this was a very academic degree. And for some people, I think that might have been quite good for performers. But, you know, it's that thing. I didn't know that I was going to be a performer. I didn't know what way it was going to turn out but what happened was like because this film had

come out I um I got an opportunity to audition at the Abbey and I got these two great parts when I was 18 in the Abbey leading parts one of them was John Crowley great director and these really leading parts my dad when I think about now, he used to drive me into the Abbey and I'd go and meet all these kind of brilliant actors. And then he'd wait in the bar afterwards and bring me home. I mean, sometimes, not every night, I wasn't that much of a nerd. Trinity were quite understanding about that I wasn't going to be able to do all my classes and all that kind of stuff. So they said, you know, you can, you know, write a report on, you know,

some of these amazing experiences that i was having so i remember we had the press night of a woman of no importance which is oscar wilde playing which i was playing one of the leads in and on that same day it's incredible what you're able to do when you're young i had my first year exams they were quite to hardcore those exams and so anyway so i'd done that did the thing did that summer that was the whole thing and then i went back over the summer and I hadn't heard anything from Trinity about the second year and what was going to happen I hadn't got all the information and all that kind of stuff about what was going to happen I was like oh well anyway I'd heard all my friends were going back for this sort of registering of year two of Trinity and I went into the Samuel Beckett Centre and everybody was

inside and I took off my trainers you know you have to go in and always take off your clothes and the sort of drama take off your clothes take off your um take off your shoes not my jeans I'm never taking my jeans off in public again so I went in and I kind of sat in the circle they were talking about the second year and the tutor he said Andrew and I was like yeah can I speak to you for a second I was like yeah and he took me outside and he said you you failed first year. What are you doing here? You failed. I said, sorry. And he said, yeah, you failed on attendance. You haven't received any of the bump for second year, have you? I said, no, I haven't. He goes, so in order for you to continue into second year,

you'll either have to repeat the first year again or take a year out or I don't know but you've got quite a lot of thinking to do but I have to go back into the class now and teach so I remember going back out I remember tying my lace and my parents didn't know any of this stuff and I was like get back into the room and put your shoes on no I had to go back that's what it was likeciating. I was outside the room where all the other people's shoes were. And I was like, oh my God, I literally have nothing to do with them for the rest of my life. I have nothing to do. I had no job. I finished in the theatre and I was like, I'm going to have to tell my parents that like, I literally don't have anything to do. So I thought, okay. so I of course spun it for them I was like

I've decided I think I'm going to take a year out from you know because things are you know I might get another opportunity in the Abbey I've got an agent at the time and I suppose the reason I consider it a failure is that that actually isn't really the failure because actually things worked out fine and but what the failure I think is is that I shouldn't have been in Trinity. Sometimes I think that having a safety net, which is what that was, because what I failed on was attendance, which meant that I just didn't really want to go. I didn't want to go. And I didn't go.

And if I wanted to go, I would have gone and I would have passed. But actually what I was in some way subconsciously doing was just not doing what I didn't want to do. And so when that happened, even though I was shocked, I was shocked. It wasn't a kind of unpleasant feeling. I was like, okay, now I have to do what I have to do. So now I am an actor. I have to be because I have nothing else to do. So in some way I manifested it, you know? So actually, I suppose what I mean is this idea of having something to fall back on.'ve never if I'm honest I don't think I've ever thought about failing as an actor because whatever way would have worked I was always

so passionate about it that I would have made it work and sometimes I think when you give yourself a get out clause to a certain degree that's what you do you get out you get out of the thing that you don't want to do and that's for me that's definitely so interesting though that idea that a safety net is overrated because it's a diversion from your passion you're right yeah have you ever regretted not completing your degree no absolutely not and not only that i i don't because then there was an opportunity then i thought maybe i could go and train properly as an actor and i've never regretted that no and then you were an unnamed corpse in Saving Private Ryan two years later Tom Hanks was rolling over me in Saving Private Ryan I mean in a professional way what is it like to have Tom Hanks roll over you thrilling I was so excited

they filmed that Saving Private Ryan down in Curricula Beach and so they had loads of people audition to play the D-Day landings. It was genuinely extraordinary. And he was brilliant. And actually to see, actually see Steven Spielberg was just amazing. Have you met him since? No, but I've worked for him twice. Because he produced 1917 and he did Band of Brothers as well.

I've been in loads of war films. They used to call me the reluctant soldier. Here he comes, the reluctant soldier. loads of war films. They used to call me the reluctant soldier. Here he comes, the reluctant soldier. I read somewhere

that the experience of filming Band of Brothers for you was horrible. Horrendous. Hated it. The thing I love the most about acting

is having a bit of a laugh with the other actors and everybody was taking it so seriously. I just thought this is, you know, everybody was in character. First of all,

there were all these real life war veterans were there to sort of keep an eye on you and you had to call your gun a weapon at all times and if you said oh god i left my gun in the toilet they'd go what and you'd say i mean my weapon my weapon and you'd have to give them 20 precepts can you imagine how horrendous that was and also you had to speak in an american accent the whole time which i point blank refused to do even offset oh yeah all that pretend like it's if in some way that's going to pay tribute to the real life soldiers I just find

it insulting and also just kind of stupid. I'm not what I wanted to do. I was like I'll still do a good job I just don't feel that I don't feel the necessity to be method. Okay that's my thing. So I've always been quite when I was always been quite possessed of what acting is. It's something I've often talked to Olivia Colman about who I feel quite a lot of kinship with oh my god she's such a brilliant brilliant person but about research and you know method acting and all that kind of

stuff which I've never been drawn to and sometimes in the past I've been a bit embarrassed by that because you think that people might think that you're lazy or that you don't really care or whatever. But actually for me, it feels like that idea of just kind of jumping off the cliff and being playful. So like when kids say, okay, you're the teacher and I'll be the student, the kid isn't going, okay, so where would the teacher have studied? The kid is just like, okay, where are my glasses? Am I, you know what I mean? And so I feel like that's sort of okay doing this and knowing as much as the audience doing and just keeping yourself not ignorant in a willful way but just understanding what the priority of being an actor is which is igniting your imagination to

its fullest and for me that's a very immediate present thing. Does Olivia Colman agree with you? Yeah she's I've always noticed that about her. I mean, she's exceptional. She's incredibly present as an actor. So when the camera is on, you don't really see a difference between her and what she's doing. And she's able to totally listen to you. And it's such an undervalued thing in acting,

which is your ability to be able to listen and to react to what, that's what the audience really wants to see. But also I imagine it was funny you being told to call your gun a weapon because in Ireland, weapon means something. Yeah, look at that weapon over there.

Exactly, a weapon means, well, how should we put it? Like a bit of a loser? Yeah, a bit of a loser or a bit of a like, something you want to avoid. Explain gee bag. Gi bag.

That's my favourite Irish expression. Look at that gi bag over there. It's such a great expression, isn't it? It's so good. A gi bag. I mean, it doesn't even make sense, does it? A gi in Ireland, as we know, means a vagina. Yeah.

So gi butter, you know, is a completely different thing. But a gi bag, it's just two things put together. I mean, is a completely different thing but a ghee bag it's just two things put together i mean is a ghee bag an actual thing a ghee bag doesn't it doesn't everything basically mean a loser exactly exactly exactly your third failure and i'm so glad you've chosen this because it is such an interesting one is as you put it your failure to be heteronormative how lofty does that sound well i couldn't think of another way to sort of put it and you genuinely consider it a failure i did i don't i certainly don't know but yeah i did you know there's so many different ways to live a life in the world and that feels like there is only one prototype there's a system that everybody has to live by and if you don't live by it you do feel for a while

I did like I was failing at it that there's something wrong with me and that there was something within me that wouldn't be complete actually it's quite weird I was thinking about the word complete the other day as if the idea is being complete is a good thing i'm not sure that it is it's a bit like thinking of life as a race because actually the object of a race is to get to the end first and why would you want to live life like that like the object of life is not completion it's the journey to understand absolutely that's why i think that's the thing about the idea of still being able to say, I don't know, because I think what happens is if people get to, you know, 35 and go, now I know, and I know because I've got a mortgage and I have to fucking know. And so now what I'm going to do is because I know is I'm going to turn on Netflix and I'm just going to stop learning.

And I find that really, really terrifying. So, so the idea of being complete makes me want to go to sleep for three weeks I just think oh god what am I going to do so like you should always be incomplete in a way but I suppose that's what my feeling was is that if I don't live my life in a particular way that I am a failure one of the things that I have found difficult to do and I feel really I feel so joyful about the fact that I've emancipated myself from this and that's not the Catholic church because I actually stopped going to church really when I was you know in my teens but actually it's a kind of a Catholic culture which I feel I can see both the good and bad side of now and it's that idea of clubability

which is a wonderful thing in one way because it means makes for great community but being individual is a difficult thing to do within catholic culture so to sort of have the courage of your convictions and realize you know if you're living an artistic life and for a long time i found it kind of almost shameful to even say i'm i'm an artist which now i really don't. Like, that's what I do. And so for that reason, you have to be aware of your own spark of divine fire. And actually, that seems to me more spiritual to sort of recognize that that's your nature. That's my nature is to sort of have an individual viewpoint in the world. And that's what's going to be of

value to the world. But that's a difficult thing to do within that culture, I think, sometimes, because, of course, you don't want to be somebody who has notions as we say in Ireland you know notions of a porosity about themselves and that's been a big struggle of mine and then the other thing I suppose when I say heteronormative I don't mean that as an anti-heterosexual thing to say because I do find a little bit worrying at the moment it's a sort of trend among left-leaning people for the most part is to say straight white male now as if it's a kind of thing that's okay to sort of slag off a whole section of the community

and to my mind the answer is not to start a new prejudice against a certain fraction of the community in order to balance out a prejudice against another section of the community. I certainly see that the straight white male has held a lot of the power, but a lot of straight white males are wonderful people. For the majority of people, most people's dads are straight males. And I just feel that can be kind of incendiary. But I suppose, having said that, my life is different different now I feel like my attitude towards relationships and my attitude towards myself and sexuality and all that kind of stuff has really changed that came about really from having the courage to sort of be on my own for a while which I think

for me was quite a scary thing to do so was your perception of heteronormative having a long-term stable relationship? Yeah yeah well first of all it was like being having a wife and kids and then it was to have a long stable relationship where you know you meet and you date and you then move in together and then that's what you do and who's to know what's going to happen in the future and it's not to say that that isn't on the cards for me or could potentially be but it's that you don't have to do that that there are other things that you can do and actually finding your own happiness when I lived on my own for the first time I found it really difficult and it was a very sad time in my life I feel proud in a sense that I've had the courage to spend some

time with myself because it certainly wasn't easy. And I'm really glad that I did that. But I definitely felt like, why am I putting myself in this situation? I think that there's, personally speaking, a problem that I have with a lot of the language around sexuality the idea that you come out for me implies a sense of critique or like some or defensiveness or because actually I'm people are absolutely and so I feel like the questions I'm about to ask are probably going to be quite inelegantly phrased but at what point were you aware within your family that you weren't going to have wife or kids? And did you feel that you needed to tell them? How did you feel?

Well, first of all, I just agree with you so much about the language. There are two other things that I absolutely cannot bear being described as openly gay. He's openly gay. Don't say, oh, that person, oh, gay yeah he's openly gay don't say so that person oh no that's it's openly Irish it's it's as I say it's two steps from shamelessly or you know you know what I mean shamelessly gay openly gay he's not even embarrassed well as you know it implies some defiance that you know if it's also something that you only ever hear in the media. Nobody ever says, this is my openly gay friend, Darren. So true. Nobody ever says it.

You don't, you don't, it's such a weird, weird expression. Anyway, I could go on for ages about that. The other one is casual sex. Right. I've never even thought to question it, but now I. Well, I suppose there's a judgment in it in some way, which is the idea, like, what is their semi-formal sex? And then there's a judgment in it in some way, which is the idea like, what is their semi-formal sex? And then there's black tie sex.

And the black tie sex is the one that you should be having because that's the most sort of meaningful one. Can you imagine smart casual sex? Smart casual sex would not be fun. Because what way are you going to be? You're a rose between two thorns now. Exactly. So yeah, semi-formal.

But yeah, like the idea that casual sex can't you know you can't extract any kind of meaning from casual sex i think that's really dangerous because because it invokes shame in people and actually you get so much meaning if like both of us i think have had quite similar experiences i was in long-term relationships all of my 20s and when i became single post-divorce mid-30ss, sorry, parents, I had loads of casual sex. And it was incredibly important for me to do that. It's really important. And that's what I mean, this idea of sex shaming people about this, about categorizing what's important. You learn from people. It's not about the length of time you spend with somebody. In a way, that's what Fleabag

is about, is that you can have incredibly potent lifelong effects from meeting somebody over two weeks or one week or, you know, three hours. You can go, oh my God, I was that broad. I learned something. I learned something. And I think if you're going through that situation where you're having casual sex with people, sometimes that's what you need to do what was really important to me was to understanding our own sexuality or who you are or what you like was such a taboo really and you have to be able to make mistakes and you have to find out who you are because it's such an important part of who we are and it has to be talked about Esther Perel is somebody who is a great hero of mine and I love her. She says this great thing, which is at the beginning of long-term relationships,

is to bring your kinks early. I think it's such a wonderful thing to... I think she's a hero. I really think she's a real hero to be able to speak about sex in such an open and kind and generous way. And that idea that love and sex have to be merged in some way and that that can be troublesome is so wonderful to me that actually because what can sometimes happen isn't is that people find once they're sort of three years in they go oh I can't really say that now

because they might think I've been hiding that it's so different than the community so the culture of the relationship has been something completely else and then you have to so that idea of saying yeah this is what I opening that up kind of quite early because everybody has a preference it's not saying you know it doesn't mean that you have to be a sexual extremist it just means to sort of have an understanding in the same way you have taste in what kind of furniture you might buy that you go this is what i like you don't have to laminate it it's not like you know it's fluid you could laminate it anyway no judgment but that you go this is this is a starting off point and to bring that up anyway so to answer your question yeah that was very frightening to me when I was young yeah it was frightening to me that I wasn't going to be able to be that person and I think what happened for

me when I was all around that time when I was working 1920 21 I was very abstemious on that front I didn't really have a sex life and what I became was a very good person which is a real in order to combat balance out this deep shame I have they maybe won't notice that if I become a really good friend I'm a a nice person and blah, blah, blah. And it's such a dangerous thing for a young person to have to feel and go through, you know, to equate goodness with almost like virginity. It's very, it's very troubling. It's very Catholic. It's very Catholic. It's very Catholic.

Yeah. And I would have, you know, in the arts world and there were lots of gay people around and, but it was something that I definitely did. So the journey traveled and that catches up with you, that caught up with me, you know, that feeling of, somebody described it to me once as being able to speak a language fluently, to be able to speak it, to know that you can speak something really fluently and never speaking it. And I think that's what happens certainly for a lot of gay people

is that they come out and all they do is speak the language for, you know a period of time and that's that's you can go down a kind of wrong path but there's nothing wrong with if if you haven't been able to do that it's a sexist communication like a language and so you want to be able to speak it and sometimes you want to speak it a little more than you do and you know you want to you know finesse it to sort of extend the metaphor too much so the idea of being open and you know the marriage referendum in Ireland you know I've often sort of extend the metaphor too much. So the idea of being open and, you know, the marriage referendum in Ireland, you know, I've often said it was like literally that one

of the happiest days of my life. The emancipation of Ireland on that front is so incredible to me. And, you know, my own, I really do feel my own emancipation and to be, you know, even to be able to talk to you today about these things, which is something that I never would have dreamed of, you know, of both those having a career and being able to play all sorts of different parts gay straight whatever blah blah blah that was a real fear of mine so I do feel proud of the you know it's work I've had to work hard um on my own sometimes a lot so proud and I'm so honored that you're talking about it thank you and I think it's gonna pleasure the idea of this whole podcast is so fascinating to me and it's you know it's an act of heroism I really don't say that lightly because people need that people success has always spoken

backwards you know we never talk about the time you know you go you did that and you did that and you never talk about those really uncertain times where you go I have no idea where I'm going or what I'm going to do and that idea of vulnerability which is the great magical word of genuinely embracing that and saying you know I don't know I have no idea that's the mark of a really great human being and an art a great artist I'm going to cry so i'm going to ask you something else go ahead and cry when you told your family about your fluency in this particular language yeah i remember reading something that you said about how it's actually a real gift because you go to these people that you love and say this is me am i still accepted yeah i absolutely think that i think it's something that I've been

given that maybe a lot of straight people haven't been given that idea of it's something I say a lot but it means a lot to me that I remember writing when I was about 20 I heard the expression my burden has become my gift and I remember just thinking wow wouldn't that be amazing this burden that I feel you know daily could be something that actually I'd feel this is something I've been given, that I love, it's a gift that I love. And it's absolutely something that I feel now. I mean, if I could press a button, I wouldn't press it, if you know what I mean. And I think that comes with the fact that if you go around at a very young stage in your life and you say to the people

who matter most with a real sense of fear and vulnerability this is who I am I hope you still love me and they say yes we do you experience in a felt way genuine unconditional love because your biggest fear at a young age was put away and that's something that not a lot of people get to experience as kind of scary and everything as it was I feel so grateful for it because I know and I learned it early more to the point that these people actually really love me and for the people who didn't respond and I have to say positively I have to say in my experience I was really lucky there was very very few people who said, I'm sorry, pack your bags or anything like that.

So I feel incredibly lucky to have been given that sort of armor. Armor is the wrong word, but support at such an early age. And it's the kind of scaffolding that you can make the building out from, you know, from then, even though it's taken a long time but you know as great as everything is I hope you know I'm in a good really good place in my life at the moment but I love the idea that in a year's time there's gonna be whole lots lots of new stuff that I'll know that I don't know now and I think that kind of comes from having a job that's very inconsistent because you really don't know I have no like for next year for example I don't really know what

I'm going to be you're doing Tom Ripley yes I'm so excited yeah yeah well that's true I am going to be doing that the town minister Ripley is one of my favorite films and I love the novel oh yeah right the scripts are genuinely extraordinary and uh it's a really wonderful part. But like, you know, I'm sort of, I've been really lucky to play all these kind of quite iconic literary characters, Hamlet and Moriarty from the Conan Doyle and now Tom Ripley. And I feel like it's really interesting just delving into how people describe him sociopathic or psychopathic or, you know, talk about his sexuality that he must be this and and actually the great challenge of it really is to go no not listening to that no I'm not I have to decide what it is I'll decide if he's a you actually do have to become quite bulgy that's so interesting because actually Patricia Highsmith barely describes him that's what makes him so chilly absolutely and so people want to go well I mean he's isn't he gay that character somebody was sort of trying to in a way praise me they said you're the first openly gay actor to play this character and I was like right what's that got to do with anything you know you're saying that he's the character is gay you can't make that

assumption just yet of course that idea of his sexuality is fascinating but you know you've got to sort of if I've taken charge of that character I've got to be really let me let me let's just let you kind of just not listen the reason that that character is so wonderful is that you're on his side he's the hero and you want him to succeed and to me it speaks of otherness that's what it's about it's about that yeah exactly that feeling where you go I am not invited to that party. Yes, you're so right. You know what I mean? That's what it is. Yeah.

And I love the rebranding of this word queer. Queer, when you just used to describe somebody as queer when we grew up in Ireland, it was really, it was not a nice expression. You'd think it was a slur, a gay slur. And I love this rebranding of the word queer, which means to me, somebody who is kind of undefinable. You can't really say there's something just, I can't really work that person out. And that's, I think, at the centre of her work. But she's also, you know, her contemporaries say about Highsmith that she's probably the most, you know, she's the greatest of all the crime writers. So she's got this incredible skill.

In fact, I don't even know. She was this extraordinary person used to carry around stones in her pockets and snails and snails in her bra and like she was amazing and like you know she has a sort of you know very particular attitude towards women herself you know i don't know if now she would describe her as sort of non-binary so there's definitely loads of stuff to be explored in there and uh yeah so i've got to be a bit like wait we'll just decide you know you gotta because if you're gonna put your stamp on it you've got to put your own stamp on it and not try and please everybody all the time yeah andrew scott i could talk to you

for weeks and weeks on end i've got one final question what did you do with that pizza last night oh i edit but i edit with a little bit of sorrow in my heart and a tiny bit of Catholic guilt. What lovely toppings. Exactly, what lovely, lovely toppings. A topping of sorrow and a smattering of confession. Andrew Scott, you are wonderful. Thank you. Likewise. Thanks so much, Elizabeth. much Elizabeth. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.