How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S9, Ep 4 How to Fail: Ruby Wax

Episode Date: September 16, 2020

I've wanted to get this guest on for ages and now - hooray! - here she is: the inimitable Ruby Wax. Ruby started out as an actress at the RSC, took a side-step into comedy and had a hugely successful television career, interviewing everyone from Madonna and Imelda Marcos to the Spice Girls. But, after living with depression all her life and a series of breakdowns, she got a Masters from Oxford University in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy and is now a mental health campaigner and author.Ruby joins me to talk about mental health, mindfulness, job loss, how to deal with anxiety and comedy as a vehicle for truth. We chat about the influence of her late, dear friend Alan Rickman, the trauma of a difficult upbringing, the time she mortally embarrassed herself in front of Sir Paul McCartney and her spectacular failure at an audition for Saturday Night Live. Oh, and we talk about what happened when she interviewed the future President of the United States, Donald Trump, on his private jet [spoiler alert: it wasn't great].And if you enjoyed this episode, Ruby's new book, And Now For The Good News...From the Future With Love is out TOMORROW! *PLEASE PRE-ORDER MY NEW BOOK TOO, THANK YOU! Failosophy: A Handbook For When Things Go Wrong is available here*To celebrate the publication of Failosophy, I am doing a LIVE show at The London Palladium. It is also live-streamed online. If you'd like to buy tickets for either option, you can do so 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] You can buy our fantastic PODCAST MERCH here.* Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayRuby Wax @rubywaxHow To Fail @howtofailpod              Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Their website address is www.beja.london. Beja is spelt B-E-I-J-A. It's Portuguese for kiss, so you learn something new every day. You can book your online fit appointment on the homepage of their website. Thank you very much to Beija London. Before we get on with today's episode, I just wanted to beg you all to buy my new book. I mean, might as well be completely up front and open about it. That's what I would love you to do. You can pre-order Philosophy now at the Waterstones website. In fact, you can pre-order a signed copy. It is out on the 1st of October. I would

love you to read it. It is a distillation of everything that I've learned in the last two and a half years of talking ceaselessly about failure to lots of amazing people. It is packed full of inspirational quotes from past guests and loads of practical wisdom for how to get through tough patches in life. It is organized according to seven failure principles. If you've come to one of my live shows, you might have heard me go through them and it's just an expansion of that, really. But you can read it in one sitting. It's not that long.

Or you can dip into it as and when certain themes seem to be applicable to you. It's also beautifully illustrated, not by me, I hasten to add, but by the amazing illustrator Paul Blow. Anyway, if you would like to pre-order it, I would be incredibly grateful. So just head to www.waterstones.com. And on top of that, if for instance, you wanted to buy the book and a ticket to see me live, you can now come and see me at the London Palladium. I am doing, excitingly, a socially distanced show where they have all the safety measures in place. You book in household bubbles. That's going to happen on the 2nd of October it's my only launch event for the new book and you can buy a ticket that includes a book in the ticket if you can't come to London

or you'd rather not then you can also join me on the live stream and it's going to be a really fun evening I'm going to be doing a bit of a spiel at the beginning. Then I'm going to be interviewed by the fantastic Raven Smith, Vogue columnist and funniest man on Instagram, I think anyway, hashtag TM. Then there will be a Q&A and there will be some very, very special guests on the night as well. So if that interests you, please go to www.fane.co.uk. And now on with the episode. 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 today has had two notable careers. The first was as a professional funny woman. She trained at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, joined the RSC, discovered a gift for comedy, became a TV star and fronted a brilliant interview series where she met and chatted to everyone from Donald Trump to the Spice Girls. The second career is as a mental health campaigner, a woman who after leaving television completed a master's degree in mindfulness-based cognitive therapy at Oxford University. Her dissertation became a sellout stage show, the first of many. She then went on to write three best-selling books on mental health, including Sane New World and How to Be Human, a manual, and was awarded an OBE in 2015. She is, of course, the wonderful Ruby Wax. Now, I've wanted Ruby on the podcast ever since I started How to Fail because she has been such

a pioneer for people like me in speaking openly about the things that go wrong and offering us hope. In 2017, she launched Frazzled Cafe, where people who are feeling not okay can meet on a regular basis to talk and share their personal stories. During lockdown, Ruby took the Frazzled Cafe onto Zoom. And her new book, And Now for the Good News, is an informative and humorous guide to all the things we can be positive about in the future. As she put it in an interview last year, it was out of the darkness that light came in. But for years, Ruby kept her depression under wraps, telling her husband, TV producer Ed Bai, only five minutes before they got married. It wasn't until she checked into a clinic years later that she realized how widespread mental health issues were and what impact she could make by speaking out.

My belief is that being vulnerable isn't being weak, she writes in her new book. It's being human. Ruby Wax, preach to that. Thank you so much for coming on How to fail thank you I can only fail who knew that that was going to be my badge of honor well it's I'm delighted you're the ideal guest how are you today how vulnerable are you feeling today not that vulnerable because you know you need a reason to get up in the morning. And I know this sounds a little trite, and I don't want to push it, but Frazzle Cafe that I do every day at 5.30, it's my anchor

because I'm looking at a sea of sometimes up to 100 people, and they have the same expression on their face that I do, which isn't, yeah, how are you doing? Oh, I'm fine. I don't want to hear that anymore. I want to slap somebody. I mean, it's not like they have to feel terrible, but just give me a few more details.

You know, I always say to the people, give me the weather condition inside your head, and then I'll relax. Because that's when you go, oh yeah, he's like me, she's like me. That's such a good question, the weather condition inside your head. Because suddenly that makes it available. It gives you the vocabulary that you need to express yourself. Yeah, I'm not shrinking them.

You know, there's no therapy. I'm just saying, go below the radar. Don't give me the news, please. Everybody's like, it's like the walking dead. You know, people want to talk about the news. I said, well, I can watch it. We're in another realm here. We should have been here before.

When people speak from the heart, that's community. you can do as many paintball weekends as you want you're not going to connect I hadn't realized that frazzled is a technical term I read you saying that in an interview somewhere what does it mean yeah it's a neurobiological term you see how on it I was I didn't know that frazzledled is a state. I have the actual definition, but not in front of me. It's when you focus on the stress and it becomes so extreme that you can't focus on the mission at hand. So now you're getting stressed about stress. And that's a new phenomenon. Or anxious about anxiety. It's that constant parade of thoughts that sound like your mother's living in your forehead that stream through. And that's what creates now the mental distress. It's that

thought stream. And I could talk about why it's there, but I did that in How to Be Human in the book as to why we get the ticker tape parade. And thank God we have it because it was basically for our survival. So A, we have to live in peace with it. And B, I always think talking is half the cure. The minute it's out of your mouth, it's kind of dispersed into the community. And a group can handle stuff, whereas an individual really can't. So the Frazzled Cafe is all about community. And in your new book, and now for the good news, you also talk about the fundamental importance of community cohesion and inclusion.

How long has it taken for you to feel included in something? I never feel included. Ever since I was a kid, I didn't feel American. I'm not sure what sex I am during the day. I don't have a label, which is really dangerous. I didn't do it on purpose. It's just that my parents were so weird living in America that I was from another planet.

That's what it felt like. And then when I got to the UK, I also was a freak of nature. So I never feel part of a group until I went to either the mental institution, these are my people, and the frazzled. And they aren't the one in four necessarily. They're everybody. As soon as somebody says to me, what's going on?

What's the weather condition in their mind? They don't have to go on long. Then I feel they're in my community. So my community's gotten quite large and may be the reason for writing. And now for the good news. And now for the good news, dot, dot, dot, to the future with love. We may or may not include that, but it's on the cover. Because I was looking

for community. I wanted to change my life again. And so for the last two years, I went on a hunt to find where people were doing things that weren't constantly pummeling us with, it's never going to work. The world is coming to an end. I shouldn't have children. It's a disaster. So I intentionally took my attention to where people were doing really innovative stuff, because wherever you focus your attention defines who you are. So I was having a good day for the last two years, you know, and it wasn't living in my house in London. I want to come back to that. But do you really mean that about not knowing what sex you are on any given day? No, I mean, I kind of know, but religion, no, I know what sex I am. But I don't have a solid identity. And I'm not proud of it. It's just the

way it is. Maybe that's part of the, I'm not mentally ill every day of the week. But that could be this loss of identity. My parents didn't give me any identity except that I was an idiot. That was my identity. So you can see why I'm moving away from my initial identity. You talk in the book about the value of kindness and not just a community value, but it's also something that has socioeconomic value as well, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I never used the compassion word, you know, the C word, I always flinch slightly that we're being a little greeting card with a kitty cat on the front. But now researching this stuff, I have to say, even when Darwin said survival of the fittest, it's so interesting.

He didn't mean the toughest, he didn't mean the alpha, it was misinterpreted by Herbert Spencer during the industrial age, to mean the tough guy wins, you know, so he could justify the fact that he was ripping everybody off and making people his slaves. But by fittest, Darwin meant the people that can adapt to other people, the people with compassion, the people who could make other people feel good. That's the fittest. That's what he meant. I certainly was educated thinking the Gordon Gekko thing of you have to be an asshole to survive. And that was all a fallacy. So now I'm starting to see, wait a minute, because I said in my last book, I thought it was we had a

reptilian brain and then a higher brain, but we were more in the fight and flight state. It turns out now we were born with this kindness. I mean, that's certainly how a mother grows a baby's brain. If she doesn't, you know, make those motheries noises and hug it and make the, I don't even know, suddenly it comes out of your mouth. You think, I didn't study this. And the rocking, that passes this oxytocin and that grows the baby's brain. And then the baby starts to realize it's safe. And it has a little imprint for the rest of its life that the world is safe. If you didn't get it,

I'm including myself, you know, where my mother go, Oh, I dropped the baby. If you didn't get it, you really spend a lifetime looking for that acceptance. If you begin with that, it really is a good template for the rest of your life. But most people begin, because even if you're defective, most mothers, I don't know how nature knew this, get filled with this kind of love juice. She may not know it, but she is, unless she's really psychopathic. But that's how you grow a baby. So we begin like that. And then people start to say, oh, you're not good enough. Teachers tell you you're not smart enough.

You start to have experiences. And then people start to say, oh, you're not good enough. Teachers tell you, you're not smart enough. You start to have experiences and that becomes your default mode. One of the things that I loved about your new book is the Wobot, which I'd never heard of before, because I love a pun anyway. But tell us what the Wobot is. Oh, there's a tech chapter where I was trying to find the good news there. Well, who knew that Zoom was going to come along? And if you can't feel anybody or touch them, you know, we can now at least look in the whites of each other's eyes, unless it's a business meeting. And that oxytocin, that bonding chemical, does turn on over a screen.

Who knew that? So I could have written about that, but it was before the virus. But there are these little gadgets, especially for elderly. There isn't a generation really to take care of them. And there's not enough nurses. It started in Japan, where there really isn't a younger generation to take care of them. There's so many elderly people there. There's just been a boom and not enough of the younger generation. So it senses your feelings, your emotions, and it can make gestures that look like compassion. And they put their arms up for affection and they make noises.

It's like a purring cat, except in a lot of elderly homes, they won't allow cats. I'm not saying this is the answer, but I'm just saying as far as taking care of a certain group, it ain't bad. Loneliness and feeling unloved is a killer. People don't thrive as long if they feel that alone. It's a chemical thing that happens. It disintegrates the brain. So you use these artificial things. People are going to be appalled, but it does have a high success rate with the elderly. And then with kids with certain learning disabilities, it memorizes certain personality traits so it knows when to speak. You can exchange greetings with it. And it helps them with their homework, I think. It sort of understands the autistic mind.

But I'm not totally for that. What I think is now interesting, those are just a couple things on the market, is now there's bots that do CBT. Well, that's really interesting. So that CBT is very technical. You know, it asks you, what are you thinking? Is this a repeated pattern? How can you validate it? And then by watching how you're thinking is so habitual, it makes you reassess, oh, maybe this is a habit.

And this bot is open all night. It doesn't cost very much. And it is what open all night. It doesn't cost very much. And it is what a shrink does. It isn't supposed to give empathy. It's just supposed to make you understand the habits of your mind. And there's no waiting list for it. And there's no waiting list. Yeah. We're in desperate situations now. There's not enough shrinks. That's why I have frazzled because there's a big population out there. The Quakers had it right. And maybe religion had it right is that, again, if you can have a community to back you, it might just protect you from the oncoming full tsunami of a mental illness. It just might. There's another thing, though, if you're talking about the tech side, they're teaching kids

emotional intelligence. I thought this was good. So when there's a bad guy, the kids get more points if they try to figure out why he's a bad guy. Like, did he get a divorce last week? Maybe he couldn't find a parking space. So kids artificially learn how to feel empathy. It's brilliant that you speak in your work about the idea that we are not our fault, which I think is such a good phrase. And you've mentioned your parents a couple of times. And I wonder if I could ask you about your childhood. So your parents were Austrian Jews who left Austria in 1938 because of the Nazi threat. And your father was a sausage casing salesman. Is that right?

Yeah. So proud. Yeah. I always said he was a fashion designer for hot dogs. I love that so much. Just to bump it up, just to bump up, you know, like I'm no slouch. He was like the, who's really famous now, you know, the Michael Kors salami. So don't look at me like that. But did you at some fundamental level, not feel safe around your parents? Well, sorry to push this, but I wrote a book called How Do You Want Me, which was the first book I ever wrote. And it was about sort of taking the lines from my parents. I didn't even have to edit what came out of their mouth was genius, as far as going to the dark side. So much so that Carrie Fisher edited it for me. And she said, your parents are almost as nuts as mine are. You can't get a better review

than that. I mean, they were wild. They were, Vianese, this was him saying hello. I don't know if you're thinking, she's a mother moron. My daughter is a mother moron. I mean, just wild. mother moron. My daughter is a mother moron. You know, I mean, just wild and said great lines like who brings footprints into a building when I used to come in with sand on my feet and she'd be scrubbing behind me on the shag pile because she couldn't stand dust or dirt. But that wasn't the only problem. But they had these Austrian kind of Gestapo siren voices. So even though I didn't come from Nazi Germany, I felt it. They brought the war to our kitchen nook. And I think they used me as a kind of grenade that they tossed to each other. So it wasn't a great beginning. And you were an only child as well, weren't you?

Yeah. So I was the only football in town. And I thought that was normal up until I started telling people. And they said, no, that's not normal. I told my aunt, when I tell them stories, they thought it was fantasy. And I said, my dad took me to South America, right, our family, because he wanted to point out some people who were Nazis. They used to do that, and they went to South America. And he did point a few out. But while we were in Chile, I was about 10. He left me and went to the airport to teach me a lesson that I should be on time

with $16 to get to the airport. I was nowhere near that. So as a young kid, I had to figure out how do you find an airport? And it was just about at war at that time. They were seriously out of control. But then, you know, they did that show, How Do You Want Me? And now I understand. It's interesting that you mentioned Carrie Fisher there. And I know you two were very close. Because sometimes I wonder how much a difficult childhood gives you a drive to succeed and prove your parents wrong. Do you think that's part of it? No, I don't. I think there's just as many kids who are stunted by it. You know, some kids might have successful parents and they can't get out of their rooms.

It's Russian roulette. People always think mental illness is carried. Well, if you have any brothers and sisters, are they all mentally ill? We just don't know, you know, that we have to put up our hands and say this brain is so complex that we're only in the foothills. I don't know. And I don't agree that all comedians have mental illness because one in four people aren't that funny. In the book, you also write about the future of education and community. So tell us a bit about that. Well, that's how I came up with this concept that it is going to be community that's going to move us into a healthier future. So I went to Finland to see how they educate kids. And they say they don't want Nobel Prize winners. They just want kids to feel safe and feel that they have a reason

to be on earth. So I watched these classrooms where they put the smartest kids with kids that aren't that great. And you watch the kids who are smart in that area really get pride out of helping the other kids. And all of them are encouraged to ask really stupid questions. You almost get a better grade because those are the kids that think out of the box. So there's no them and us. I got a higher grade. Because if you keep believing, like me, that we're stupid, we will become even more stupid. And we could grow some really angry adults if you keep putting other people down like that. And there are schools in the UK, like there's something called Reach To, where those kids work as a little community. They have buddies that they help. Every morning,

they get in a little circle and say, here's what I like about you. I mean, it sounds touchy-feely, but their grades are sensational now. I did actually go to communities, which I was going to move to for a little while. After I finished the book, there's these eco villages that sound really hippie, but they're not. Some of them are very impressive now. And there is about 10,000, where if you want to do zero emissions, I always say get off the pot and live there or shut up. So I did find these communities where some of them have 2,000 people. And there's professors in there and startups and whatever. But they have to adhere to these rules, which are they have to be transparent. There has to be equality.

And there has to be authenticity when they make decisions. There are little communities, and they're in cities too. There's one in London called BedZed, and it's in South London. It's a community where everybody has their own plot in the garden. They all watch the kids. They have community centers where women who have babies take care of each other. Where does that happen? And this is in the middle of a city. I wanted to move to BedZed just for a little while. There's that feeling in your heart that people have got your back. But also in business, because I thought business was what my dad said it was, which is, may

the best man screw you. There are now companies. I went to work at Patagonia, the sportswear company in America, where for 40 years they walked the talk. So 10% of their money goes to environmental causes. Each person has to commit to working locally. When they advertise their merchandise, they say, please never buy another one if you bought a jacket. If something goes wrong, send it back. We'll fix it and send it back to you. Everything's recycled. I have a jacket

that's fantastic, made out of plastic bottles. And there are companies that I went to visit where they're changing the bones inside. There's a book called Conscious Capitalism, and it names those companies. And they make a lot of money. This is not alternative. So it is community that is the glue that holds society together. And I think one of the linking factors in all of those communities is that everyone or everything, be it a school pupil or a jacket, is given space to fail. Completely. Completely, because they're the creative thinkers. In 20 years, the jobs that we have now won't exist. So what are you stuffing into a kid's head?

60% of eight-year-olds will have jobs that don't exist now, but it'll be creativity and empathy that'll be the gold star standard. You know, if you really know how to work a crowd, you're going to go to Harvard. How do you feel personally about failure, Ruby? Well, I think I am the result of being able to tolerate failure

because it came so hot and heavy. And with each gash in the stomach, some people would go under. I mean, I come from a long line of people with serious mental illness, and some of them didn't survive. But I must have had a gene. And I think it was anger that said to my parents, I'm not going to go under. I'm not going to be institutionalized for life, which my dad thought was going to happen. I'm going to show you that I can be more successful than you. So I got successful through rage. And that's not really good for your health. That's why I switched careers. But boy, does it get you success. Success through rage. I love it, especially because women historically have been taught

to sideline rage, that their rage is seen as kind of inward and hysterical and shrewd and slightly embarrassing. Whereas men can be rageful and they can be Batman. Totally. Yeah. Like, well, Gordon Gekko. I have his quote. We thought, wow, that guy in Wall Street, he almost became a hero. And he was Attila the Hun. You know, all these guys, we slightly smirk and go, weren't they cute? In a way, Napoleon, Alexander the Great. Look, they were just doing their job. If it was a woman, forget it, we'd be burnt at the stake. So true. I'm going to come on to your failures now. There's no easy link. No, just come, just jump. Jump in there.

But your first failure is about wanting to be on Saturday Night Live. So tell us what happened there. Well, I always wanted to make it in America. And every time I touched anything in America, it blew up. It just exploded. It didn't work. So after I was in the Royal Shakespeare Company, I thought, surely I must be good because I was a terrible actress before the RSC and probably during the RSC. But Alan Rickman taught me how to be funny.

He took me under his wing and he worked with me for 30 years, teaching me how to do comedy. So I leave the RSC. I think, oh boy, am I hot stuff. I go to New York. Can I just stop you? Sorry, Ruby.

How did he teach you to be funny in that way? How did he teach you comedy, Alan Rickman? Well, you can't really teach comedy, but Alan said, write down how you think or speak. He said there were 200 pages of me riffing, stream of consciousness. And he said it was like I vomited on him. So he put all the pages together and a play came out of it. And then I put in Juliet Stevenson. And I put in quite famous people and gave myself the lead so I could write funny. That was the first thing.

He was the one that pointed it out. I thought I was illiterate. But it turns out my dyslexia worked for me because it makes it more like jazz rather than a waltz. And then I get on stage and he directed all my shows. And he said, no, no, no, you look desperate. You want people to laugh. Get rid of those hatchet eyes.

And it took me 30 years. He said, just say it. And he'd show me. And he was hilarious. And I really couldn't get rid of the desperation for many years. And now I get what he means. Just kind of don't give a shit. And then people will come to you.

If you're desperate, they back off. So, you know, first of all, I could write funny. You can't. I just had to learn how to do my own lines better. And it sounds as if you needed to have someone who believed in you. Oh, yeah. He was, if it wasn't for him, I would have been, well, I don't even know where I'd be. And he'd tell my parents, she's really funny.

He'd go, that's ridiculous, my father. They're laughing at her. They're not laughing with her. And Rickman would say, oh, no, Mr. Wax. She's very talented. So he saved me. So I thought I was really funny. And I go to New York thinking, I'll just make it in New York.

And I go to the Brill office. And they say, there are no auditions for Saturday. I said, sometimes I'm nuts. Oh, well, I demand to see the people in charge of the show. It was six o'clock at night. They got some pretty big players into an office on a sofa, looking at me, three of them. And they said, okay, be funny. I don't even want to discuss what happened. I couldn't. I had a full attack in front of them, talking about some madness. Madness came out of my mouth. And I saw their faces, the disappointment. And then Al Shatner, somebody really famous said said do you want to go out and have a

drink I think he felt sorry for me and we went to a bar and I got so drunk that he just left me there so that was oh my god really yeah oh yeah that was bad that was my audition and I'd gone on for hours about how funny I was. What a nightmare. That is one of the things that I often think with actors and comedians, the stress of performance and the requirement to audition must just be horrendous.

To get into the RSC, I auditioned, and I didn't audition a lot in my life, but that was truly grotesque grotesque if you can write your own show you never have to audition again tell us a little bit about the RSC because I know that that's one of the things that your friends find extraordinary that you that you ended up there no my friends say there's two mysteries in their lives One is who shot Kennedy and two is how did you get into the RSC? That I hear from a lot of people. I was in drama school and I was a total failure. There's another failure to the point that you're paying to go to drama school, but I didn't get any parts. Imagine that in all the plays. Once I was like a waitress, somebody in restoration comedy who had no lines. And finally at the end, my class went to the principal and said, I don't think that's

fair that she doesn't get a part. Anyway, what happened was then you had to compete at the very end. Well, that's when I auditioned. But I knew how to play madness like nobody's business. So I played madness. I think it was Antigone or something. And that won me the gold medal. And then I mentioned the gold medal and then

I mentioned the principal then and said his head should roll. My dad and I have a really good sense of revenge. Anyway then from there I eventually got into the RSC because I could play that scene. I remember Trevor Nunn watching I think in John Barton and they were one of them was eating ice cream and the ice cream fell on his tie. Because I was so insane. I wasn't good, but I could play crazy. And then I got in, and I met Rickman. I'd met him before. I got into Sheffield at the Crucible before the RSC. And we lived in the same house. We weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, but we called it Shakespeare Sauna. It had one wall that was all tinfoil. And we would tell people, this is where Shakespeare had his spa. People would believe us.

And we'd give tours to our house. Rickman was hilarious. And then gradually, he said, you should do comedy because you're not a very good actress. A lot of people said, you're not a very good actress, especially my dad when he came to see me. But Rickman said, I bet you're funny. So that's how it happened. when he came to see me. But Rickman said, I bet you're funny. So that's how it happened. When you were playing Madness at this stage in your life,

how much were you aware that that came from your own mental health? Oh, are you kidding? Yeah. That was just somebody exploding, but calling it Antigone. But I could really play Madness. And then I could do wenches. That's how I got ahead in the RSC. As a matter of fact, nobody ever played a wench, I think, like I did. And Michael Horton was in Love's Labour's Lost. He played my boyfriend. And I was a pretty good wench. I'd hoik my stomach up to make it, you know, so I could really have a cleavage. And I'd speak that Shakespearean, you know, they do those art. Oh, yes, coin, sir, which is not far away from Chicago. And I had my little Bo Peep stick. I could be cute in those days. Were you scared of your madness? Probably. I don't really remember. I mean, when you have a mental illness like mine,

it's not all the time. So when it goes away, it's gone now. I wouldn't say I got mental illness. So it would only come once every five years and then once every three years, and then it started to accelerate. I wasn't scared. I just, at that point, assumed I had a physical disease like glandular fever. And that's what made me unable to move sometimes. For a few days, I'd check into a hotel and wait for it to pass. And then I'd come out again. I assumed it was a physical disease. So I didn't think I was mad.

When I started telling Alan about my family, he said, write it down. So that's how I started. I could play my parents like a dream. You must miss Alan Rickman an awful lot. I'm so sorry. Yeah, yeah, I do. How did you get from Evanston, Illinois to Glasgow? I mean, obviously, physically, you probably got a plane.

But why did you end up there? Oh, speaking of failures, I got to London and I was living in a bed set where you had to squat over the plastic coals to feel any heat. And they were just flickering. They didn't provide heat. But I actually sat on a hairdryer to survive the winter. I'm not joking. I auditioned for all the schools like RADA, every single school, maybe twice. And they, nobody let me in. But Glasgow did, because they were looking for, I don't know, lunatics. So my

parents had a big discussion, which I heard, should they send me to an institution or drama school, and they figured out drama school was cheaper. So off I went to Glasgow. And then to their surprise, I never came back. And why were you in London in the first place? Was that just wanting to get away from home? Yeah, yeah. Sure. Wanting to get away from home. So I was here. So you failed to get onto Saturday Night Live. I failed to get into every drama school. But you did eventually get an incredible career in comedy and you wound up meeting your hero

Paul McCartney which is your second failure yeah and I'm so intrigued by this story because you've just given me the barest bones so give me the context why were you meeting him I came really to England to marry Paul McCartney. Another failure, Ruby. Tell me. And when I was little, like 11, I ironed my hair so I could look like Jane Asher. And all of it fell out, mostly, except three strands that were burned. There were no miniskirts, so I stole my mom's skirt.

And I got my grandmother's girdle and opened the zipper and then tucked the girdle over it so the skirt would start at my hips. Are you getting the look? Yes, I am. And then galoshes for the go-go boots. And that's how I looked. I think I drew some eyelashes, you know, those spider eyelashes on your eyes. And I was an ugly child. And so I decided I would go to England. I used to call the Liverpool operator from Chicago so I could hear her accent. And I'd giggle and hang up. A lot of my friends did. We'd just become hysterical. So I came to the UK. My parents gave me some money, but it was like $100 then.

And after I was in Girls on Top, we really have to jump ahead. I think one of the kids really liked Girls on Top. So I got invited to a Buddy Holly evening because Paul liked Buddy Holly. So it was a buffet. Jonathan Ross was the emcee. We got food and then we could go to any table. I went to Paul McCartney's table. Ed, my husband, came up to sit next to me.

I went, fuck, I went, get out of here. I don't know you because I'm on the inner sanctum now. So I'm in the sanctum. There's Linda McCartney, the kids, they're young. And Hank Wankford or somebody, some country and Western singer. I started drinking because I was a wreck. And Hank Wankford left. All the kids left because now I wasn't making sense again. I got to Linda McCartney. She left. And now I'm with Paul. And I'm really throwing it back. And all I remember is Paul trying to say something like, oh, I played in Hamburg. I knew that. Okay. Because I studied and he was called the Silver

Beatles. I knew everything. But I went, yeah, yeah, yeah. Enough about you. I was in Beverly Hills High School doing a shorthand course, and I proceeded to tell him a story. And I remember the story, which is funny, but it really wasn't appropriate. When I was having a nervous breakdown, I went to a night school in Beverly Hills. I don't know what I was doing there many years earlier, because I had a friend there. And I went on a shorthand course, because I was in the midst of a breakdown. And every week we'd learn shorthand. And then after four weeks, we had a test. And I sat there and the bell rang. And when I handed in, she called me forward. And all I had written was loops, just loops. I had thought I was doing shorthand. Well, that's a good story, but not to Paul McCartney. So he was looking at me and then I drank so much. Well, I ended up

under the dining table and Paul came and lifted the tablecloth and said, nice meeting you, Ruby. Crushing. Girls on Top, which you mentioned there, was the first comedy show that you were on in Britain with Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders, heard of them, and Tracy Ullman. And it was a huge hit. Did he recognize you? Did he know you? he know yeah he knew he must have known who I was and I've seen him a couple times since then and he'd just act really normally go hi Ruby and I did my Saturday night live to him I went that's how I talked to Paul McCartney. Are you actually shy? I don't know. I don't think so.

If I'm intimidated like I was when I met Donald Trump, I clam up pretty quick because they scare me. So that's not shy. That's fear. And is that a specifically male thing, do you think? Are you more scared of men? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Certain types of men scare me because

they remind me of my dad that they're violent and they mean to hurt me so when I see that type of man I freeze yeah you mentioned Donald Trump there who you interviewed in your series Ruby Wax Meets which I was obsessed with when it was on TV thank you all right loved it I think you're such an amazing interviewer. So it was actually very intimidating for me interviewing you. But there is this scene on Donald Trump's private jet. And I watched it again in preparation for this interview. And it is astonishing how you can see exactly the person that he is in that interaction.

Would you tell us about it? I'm sorry to ask you to revisit it when you just said it was a horrible experience. But you tell us about it? I'm sorry to ask you to revisit it when you've just said that it was a horrible experience, but just tell us about your impressions of him. My girlfriend was a makeup artist and she had to take his two hairs and a nose hair and swirl it like a Mr. Tasty or whatever it is around his head.

There was a lot of waiting for him. And the second he sat down, I was washed away in the hatred he had for me, washed. And so it's a terrible interview. I'm asking stupid questions. He's right. It was obnoxious because I couldn't, again, I didn't go into Saturday Night Live, but, oh, if you were dating somebody in the White House, what kind of question is that? If I had just shut up and said, oh, you want to be president of the United States instead of laughing, I could have hung him. Tell me what your policies would be. If I was as together then as I kind of am now, you know, I can pull back the reins of my fear. But then I

couldn't. So I asked, again, if you treat somebody like an idiot, they will become an idiot. And that's what I became. And kind of cartoon character of myself, which I wasn't, you know, just got louder, more obnoxious. So he got up and said, I want her off the plane. Then when we were thrown off the plane, that's when the show's hilarious. Because we go to Branson, Arkansas, and go to a shooting range where you shot at Saddam Hussein. We go to a place that's like Dollywood. You know, you see the Trump boners down there. And that was brilliant. And then at the end, we go back and meet Donald again, just to bookend it. At one point, he gave me a lift in his car. This is way at the end. And then he liked me because I outgrossed him. He was giving me man jokes about

women. And I gave it right back because he wanted to shock me. And he thought, oh, she's one of the guys. And then he, you could see his eyes light up. But as a female, he hated me because I wasn't screwable. That's such a horrible experience. And I've never had something that extreme, but I have been in similar situations with male interviewees where I end up almost trying to win them over yeah and putting on a show for them and as you say like meeting them where they're at in order to make the atmosphere more comfortable yeah and then afterwards feeling kind of grubby and disappointed in myself but I think it's important to tell people that often the interview scenario

is extremely intimidating, and it does feel like a battle. Yeah, that was horrible. And I hate that people watch that one, whereas there were great interviews, like with Imelda Marcos. I love that's my favorite one. Yeah. Yeah, that's my favorite, too, because she didn't intimidate me. You know, we met on a girl level, even though she robbed the country of 17 billion, but she was a female. In other ways, you had much in common. We bonded. We, you know, she loved me.

I could feel it. And she sang love songs to me, including feelings. And she took me everywhere and got rid of her kids. And she just loved me and gave me presents. So you're watching a relationship and there is such a warmth to your interviews I think you really disarm people with your warmth and your humor and your loveliness and I wanted to ask you how much you feel comedy can be used as a vehicle for truth because you're making a joke and then bam someone reveals something

yeah I mean it's a seduction you know I mean some people say well you can only have five minutes like Jim Carrey he'd done a junket all day and I said please my children would starve if you don't do this and he ended up doing a performance of a lifetime he stayed with me like three hours and we couldn't get rid of him it's because we started playing tennis with humor. Otherwise, you're just sucking these people dry, you know. Tell me the story you told 100 other people. So that worked. But somebody always said to me, if you had played it straight,

maybe you wouldn't have become as successful. You'd still have a career. Because it looked like I was being cruel. People would say, how could you talk to that person that way? Especially when my show went to America, they'd go, how dare you talk to Pamela Anderson that way? And I'd said, but you're not watching a half an hour relationship. It's not a talk show. I was with them a week.

And you're watching it. I say that over and over again. But people go, how do you have the nerve to talk like that? You know, eventually a man took my job. And in a way, I'm really grateful because I wouldn't have gone to Oxford and developed this new career because my career would have ended anyway. It's against the law to be a certain age and be on television. It's against the law until you're really old, and then you can be on Golden Girls. So it would have

happened anyway. That's the way it is for females. But I was usurped pretty early. I could be bitter, but in a way, it was a launching pad for a new life. Do you keep in touch with any of the people that you interviewed in that period of your life? Oh, well, Carrie Fisher was my best friend for 35 years. And Goldie Hawn, I'm supposed to go to Japan with. I mean, I did get some relationships because that's what you're watching. I'm sure there's some more. Oh, John McEnroe. You know, I did get some relationships because that's what you're watching. I'm sure there's some more. Oh, John McEnroe, you know, there are people where a relationship grew out of that. But yet people said, oh, you're so mean to them. How can you talk to them like that?

I said, because I'm living in their house. Yeah. There was an interview recently in New York Magazine with Michaela Cole, who wrote, starred, directed in I May Destroy You. And it was an incredible interview to read. And then I read that the interviewer had had seven weekly conversations with her, which as a journalist myself in Britain, I can only dream of that kind of access. I mean, we get 40 minutes at most at Celebrity Junket. How much do you think a good interview relies on access? No, a good interview relies on our relationship. Like I like you now. And if we went on a couple more hours, I'd probably go have lunch, but I'd still go on talking. If the relationship is bad, we both might as well say this is dead on arrival, you know, and you can tell when you start

answering like this, but people who are insensitive enough don't hear that. I remember a journalist once saying from a really dumb newspaper, what were my top 10 fears? And I said, number one is death. And she said, any particular reason? I'm just giving you an example of where the interview ends. What a great follow up question. Good, isn't it? I had to call Ed. I had nothing else to say. just giving you an example of where the interview ends. What a great follow-up question. Good, isn't it? I had to call Ed.

I had nothing else to say. I like you tremendously too. And I wish we could go for lunch, but we're doing this audio only remote recording because we're still in lockdown. So after 25 years at the BBC, as you mentioned there, you were replaced by a man and fired. And you were asked to do a show called Silk de Soleil

which is the genesis of your third failure so tell us about that I wasn't fired I was squeezed you know I'm so sorry okay yeah no it's okay it's similar to being fired but you know it's over and it feels like a death you know whenever we have to reinvent it feels like a death. You know, whenever we have to reinvent, it feels like a death. Well, it is in a way, and then something else is born, but it hadn't been born yet. So the tragedy of people who've been on TV is they hold on for dear life. And then you see them imitating who they used to be, you know, going, please do a documentary about my gallbladder operation. I'll do anything. That's such a good phrase, pretending who they used to be. That's just so true. And then they end up on an island eating a cockroach. So that I won't do, you know, because

there's some dignity. Have you been asked? A long time ago I was, and I would rather open a vein. But I did do some reality shows for comic relief. So I was in Fame Academy with Joe Brand. Now, it can't get more fun than that. And a couple other ones, which I came in second, and I can't sing. So it's not like I wouldn't do it. If they had just put comedians in it, these would be brilliant shows. But of course, the public really like humiliation. So we can't provide that.

There was a couple shows. One was Game Show First.. One was game show first, and one was Cirque du Soleil. They said, would I do it? And I was in the full depression then. I don't even remember. I was in the deep darkness of full, the demon had come in my mind. So I couldn't think straight. So I said, okay. So they put me in a kind of corset and a ring master's outfit and sent me out into the ring where I know. They said, can't you be perkier? Hey, here we are with Cirque du Soleil.

And then I cracked my whip. But I had tears running down my face because I was sick. And then I was supposed to look up at these D-list celebrities going, look at her. Isn't that fantastic where I'd see her cervix going over me? You know, people doing death-defying things where they could die, but they wanted to be famous too. You know, where you hold on by a fingernail. Everybody was just, you could smell what Rickman was talking about. Love me, love me. And then I'd have to crack my whip and go five points for that. You know, you see, it's not my natural gift. I

think it's wonderful when people can do that. There's gifted people, but that ain't my area. So every line had to be redone with sweat running off of me again. I think I did a few shows I can't remember. And the panel were like kind of screaming people, you know, like, but exactly what they wanted. So not funny, but completely over the top. And there was no humor anywhere to hold on to or irony. So I free fell. And then we were at a party and they said, Oh, we're going to do another series. And I went, Oh, great, insane at this point. And they said, Yeah, but not with you. And that's when I knew I had to leave show business pretty quickly. Oh, while I was doing Cirque du Soleil, I'd already jumped in with studying psychotherapy. Because not that I wanted to be a psychotherapist, but I was trying

to invent another life. Because you know, I'm like that I can't have no identity. So I was always interested in psychology. So now I'm at school, I'm studying psychotherapy, I have to do 400 hours to get my degree. I got 200. That's as far as I got. But we had supervision and I had clients, right? So I'm with my supervisor and she said, I don't think you're really serious about this. And I said, I really am. She said, no, it's not really good for the clients. And I said, what is it? And she pointed out the window and over Hammersmith flyover was a gigantic, and I mean a football-sized picture of me in my corset and Master of Ceremonies gear holding a whip lying sideways. Oh, my gosh.

That was out the window. Okay. Yeah. That's not great for your clients, I guess. No. But when you say there that tears were running down your face, you mean that literally? Yeah. I mean, anybody else would say, wow, you're so lucky to have that job but I was having a nervous breakdown

and was trying to hide it and I didn't know how I got there and you find yourself in front of tv cameras but you're gone and then I started breaking badly and ended up in an institution. Which was really a turning point in your life because you stopped doing that kind of TV and you went to Oxford. So it's an odd question, but are you in some ways grateful for that breakdown? Yeah, I am. I'm not happy about the breakdown, but I'm happy that I got kicked out of TV because I would have anyway, because it made me reinvent. Anybody else might have still, you know, you hear about people who used to be on TV and they're living in a basement somewhere. And once in a while they do pantomime, but I guess I have that resilience. So out of like total darkness, I got my brain started to work and I became smarter than when I was a kid.

Was it a relief when you checked into what you describe as an institution? Yeah. I mean, you don't feel emotions, so you can't ask me that. There are no emotions. You're just empty but I was with my people which means you go am I ever going to get better and they go yes you will that's a conversation so I was there quite a long time I mentioned at the beginning that you are married and have been for many many years what is it like being married and being the mother of three and going

through these incredibly dark episodes? Well, I married the right person. Yeah, you were right. When we got married, halfway down the aisle, I told him how old I really was and that I was mentally ill. So it was too late. But it was hidden from my kids until they were 16. So I was lucky. He'd say I was doing a documentary. I had a perfect cover before when I'd get ill. But then when they were old enough, he took them to the institution, especially them, and they could see that I was surrounded by really interesting people and that this was just another illness and not to be scared. So I had a perfect cover.

Women that are single mothers and they have a mental illness, I don't even know where to start with that one. But I was lucky I had a perfect cover. Women that are single mothers and they have a mental illness, I don't even know where to start with that one. But I was lucky I had a cover. And now that your children are older, are you completely open with them? Oh boy, do they know. They've seen all my shows. By the way, people go, oh, do you do shows about mental illness? I said, I did the first show about that. Of course, the Edinburgh Festival only does shows about mental illness. So I have to find a new disease. Now you have to have cancer and then herpes. Anyway, so after I wrote my first show, they weren't about mental illness because people can't get it in their heads that you change shows. So this one, you know, the last one,

how to be human in the second half was a monk and a neuroscientist it was basically about you are not your fault so I went through evolution I went through what thoughts are all the questions I had how do you pick the people you pick choose is a relationship and if I'm not answering them accurately I'm making it funny and that's what my hero Bill Bryson does so that's what I was trying to do. And your children have seen your shows. Oh, yeah. They're dragged to those shows.

And then my next show is, and now for the good news, I don't know where I'll be performing that, but I do bits of it on Zoom every other week. We're starting this called Frazzle Theatre. And you go to frazzlecafe.org to find out, to raise money to keep Frazzle Cafe alive, you go to frazzlecafe.org to find out, to raise money, to keep Frazzle Cafe alive, because that's free. And so I'm already building bits of the show. And now for the good news, because who knew that that was going to be so important after all this. And it is a kind of

Michelin guide to if you want to change your life. I found these things. I found these because I wanted to not, you know, wasn't't a chore the charities I want to join and they're real grassroots just for me the businesses I'd want to join if I was a teacher I'd get onto this wagon this is how you live this is health I did go into probiotics and how agriculture can be switched and how business can be switched so it does give you hope because there's people on it already. The world isn't so dark. You've talked quite a bit about change and about reinvention and the extraordinary human capacity to do that and for the brain to do that and regenerate itself. But I think so many of us are terrified of change.

And I wonder if you could give advice to those people, given what you've learned and been through. Well, I think part of the lockdown is suddenly we're hit with uncertainty, which we should have been practicing all along. And I'm talking for me too. At least if we studied existentialism, we'd have an idea. But nobody ever thought this was going to change. And meanwhile, your life is changing all the time anyway. But maybe that's part of the human packages. We shouldn't notice it. Otherwise, you might hurt yourself or be very unhappy. I think the lesson is that it's changing anyway, whether you like it or not. I don't like changing because I don't know

what's next. And in the past, that would probably throw me into depression. And this time, there's change. I wouldn't have written that book if I didn't think something was coming. But I'm not that scared this time. I'm not happy, but I get it. There's different phases in life, not just puberty. Something happens when you're 50. Something happens when you're 80. Your mind changes and there's nothing you can do about it. Your hormones change, and you can't control those. But I'm not saying I'm on the other side of this. I'm just saying, we better get used to it, because that's all that we know. People die, we die. That would be the ultimate is to kind of embrace it. That's it. Just enjoy it. But I'm not there. That's just what I've read.

You said in an interview that I read about when you were deciding to go to Oxford to study mindfulness, and you made a crack about, well, you know, they're not offering courses in witchcraft, so there must be something in this mindfulness thing. I found that very relatable, because I do think that many people have a misconception about what mindfulness is and what it entails. So could you just give us a handy pricey, Ruby, of your entire life's work? What is mindfulness? Okay, what is calculus? Or what is tennis? Tell me that and I'll come back at you. But is there a practical thing that you do every day that you? Yeah, I mean, I do it every day, but it's like saying I go to the gym and I do this thing where my legs are down and I come up off the ground and I sort of sit up and then I lie back down again.

And people would say, and the point is? So mindfulness is a brain exercise. It's been scrutinized in scanners. And there is a part of the brain that you are exercising. There's other ways. Mindfulness isn't the only way. And it ain't Sudoku. By the time the public find out about stuff, they're doing crap. Oxford wasn't teaching that. But a mindfulness exercise, not for everybody, does exercise a part of your brain, and you have a brain, I mean, a lot of people don't believe that, that gives you the ability to focus attention on what you want to focus on and not get dragged away to distraction

so much and to lower the cortisol so you're not frazzled. You know, there'll always be stress and anxiety, but maybe you won't go into that thought stream of, oh my God, I shouldn't be nobody else's. go into that thought stream of, oh my God, I shouldn't be nobody else's. So it's dealing with that. When you do it, you have the ability to visit the present once in a while, you won't stay there. But if you're on holiday, it's sort of a waste of money. If you are thinking about the work you have to do, believe me, I've lost a lot of holidays thinking about what I was supposed to do. And so it has these benefits. Also health wise, if you lower the cortisol, your immune system is pretty resilient. And when you break down your immune system, you're open to almost every disease. So if you don't care mentally, your brain is your physical.

So less heart attacks, less diabetes, less cancers, certain cancers. If you work on brain health, you're working on physical health more than you are when you do a sit-up. That doesn't necessarily guarantee low blood pressure, but it has other benefits. I mean, I'm not talking about aerobics. That's really good for you, but it does do a brain exercise. And if I didn't feel the results, I wouldn't do it. I kind of depend on it. If you go to freslocafe.org, I'm starting Mindful Mondays because people online have asked me. So I'll be teaching it on Mondays, not this Monday. Yeah, every other Monday. I have a day of the week to do it as well, Monday when everyone...

Yeah, yeah. So I'll be doing that. We've spoken a lot on this podcast about failure, obviously, because that's the branding. I haven't got any. It's my middle name. But I wonder if I could ask you, Ruby Failure Wax, how do you define success, personally speaking? I would have said when I was young, money, fame, families, people who love you. And now I know that if you have those things that's not necessarily the route to happiness they don't hurt but they're not the key so what success is I guess is people who can do what mindfulness trains you to do and they do it naturally they're born with those genes or you practice something like tai chi or mindfulness or some exercise because you got to exercise it if you weren't born with it to be able to not have your heart beating all the time in fear because a lot of people are in the climate of fear.

So if you can pull that down, then that's a success. Ruby Wax, I'm so glad you didn't get on Saturday Night Live because we might never have had this extraordinary fount of wisdom. I can't thank you enough for everything that you do. Oh, I love being with you. I did. I don't always love it, but I love being with you. That means a lot to me. And thank you so much for coming on How to Fail. Thank you. Thanks for asking. this episode of how to fail is sponsored by beiger london beiger london is a lingerie and swimwear brand for all cup sizes from double a up to 36h they do this brilliant thing where they offer free 20 minute online bra fittings if you're unsure on your bra size you don't even need to

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