If I Speak - 49: We need to see more wrinkles on screen!

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

Ash and Moya discuss women’s changing faces on screen and the intensifying obsession with ageing. Plus: tough love for a Special One who’s getting in their own way. Email your dilemmas to [e-mail] Music by Matt Huxley.

Hello and welcome to another rootin2in episode of If I Speak. The reason why I'm talking like this is because I woke up with Shibuzy stuck in my head. So I think I wanna go get some fringed chaps once we're done recording. Are you a year late to Shibuzy? I am absolutely a year late to Shibuzy, but it's like, I don't really recall listening to the song

or hearing it, but like just in my head it's going round and around and around. I love that. I actually love coming to things late because then you're there after the hype and you can make up your own mind about something. That's important to me. How do you feel about Shibuzy?

I have actually no opinions and I don't think I've ever intentionally listened to Tipsy. I only know about Shibuzy from Cowboy Carter. That's the only thing. That's the only way in. I know about Shabuzy from Cowboy Carter. That's the only way in. I know about Shabuzy, but I'm glad Shabuzy's doing what Shabuzy's doing. Good for him. Get that number one. Kind of following the footsteps of Lil Nas X as another black man who created a country song that kind of like crosses these genres. But Shabuzy was there was a controversy recently where I think Shibuzy either didn't get an award or wasn't uh honoured at a show that he should have been maybe it was a CMAs I don't know

if I'm spreading libel here um but it was interesting because I feel like he's been more accepted than Lil Nas X was but there's still these blocks in place yeah I mean I also think that like Tipsy is just like it is a it's a bit of a cheat to go like, I'm going to like interpolate another very, very catchy song. And also like, you know, decrepit millennials like myself are like, one, it comes the two to the three to the four. Like, you know. It's retro mania, isn't it? Everything's recycled. Pop music has lost innovation because it's so obsessed with cannibalizing its own back catalog and that's worse with the rise of the digital like innovation has just fallen off as a as something

to prize in music and that's not for all of it but like mainstream pop music it's just how do we hook people in contentification again really bleeding into it recognition you know you need these recognition patterns so you just interpolate a song. And it used to be that samples are really smart and they were used in fascinating new ways. Like for example, the Barry White sample in Rock DJ. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun. That is like a, that's a fantastic, I love samples. I could talk about this for 10 years, but that's like a really innovative sample

that makes a complete new song. Whereas when you have something like Tipsy or the way Whitney Houston's been sampled in recent years, like, if I got you babe, then it's literally just, we're just gonna take a bit of this song and we're gonna stick it in at intervals as is. It could sound like the original song, boring. I kind of think that like with sampling,

maybe there's a very basic point that I could make about like when samples had to have a relationship to the sort of like physical recorded object, like Public Enemy did this, which is like step on the record and like, you know, try and like intentionally fuck it up a bit so that when you sampled it, it sounded like a little bit different and a little bit like apocalyptic. And that's obviously gone away. And then just like, I don't know, I guess like with the Whitney Houston sample, like I can sort of see how it maybe has a relationship to the use of like sampling in garage, which is like a sort of like syllable of like soulful vocal pitched

up and like repeated in this like with staccato way. And then people are like, well, what if it wasn't staccato and it was just the whole phrase, um, which makes it a bit more boring in my opinion, just a little bit more boring. Okay. Actually 73 minus 73 minus 70 questions beginning. Yep. What's your favorite sample? Oh um um okay maybe it's gonna have to be something super obvious because my brain's just gone blank. Okay it's gonna have to be Chaka Khan,

Through the Fire sampled in, Kanye West. Through the Fire. The fire. The fire. The fire. The fire. The fire. The fire.

The fire. The fire. Great sample, great sample. Okay, cool, that's a good answer. I think it's gonna have to be that. Okay, I've got lists of samples, so it's really cheating. Okay, go on, you know, you have to hit me with one. Okay, one that I love, so it's really cheating. Okay, go on. You know, you have to hit me with one. Okay, one that I love because it's so funny and surprising is,

I think it's 4A, 4 hour, 4 hour, I can't pronounce it. Gabrielle 4A, sorry, sampled in Natural by S Club 7 because it's a classical song, which is da da da, da da da da da da da. Who the fuck thought of putting that in an S Club 7 song? It's like, I heard it in assembly once in primary school and I think this was one of my early like, this is just something I fucking loved doing because I was like, it was playing classical music and I was like, that's the sample from Natural. Also Natural, I'm bringing that back for 2025 because it is a banger, a really sexy little pop song.

Okay, next question. Biggest vice. Have I asked this before? I don't know if I've asked this before. It feels like something I might have asked before. Biggest vice. Okay, but what do you mean by a vice? Do you mean something that I've got a compulsive relationship to? Or do you mean something which is, I've got a compulsive relationship to, or do you mean something which is, I guess, more traditional? Biggest compulsion. Give us your compulsion. Oh, okay. So I actually, like, I mean,

this was gonna be screamingly obvious to like everyone listening, but like I had to do this like media training in preparation for book tour, where like we had to war game interviews, where it was like, how do you wanna come across? And like, how can people derail you from it? And me and the guy who's media training me worked out that I've got a absolutely crippling addiction

to being right. So if someone introduces like another debate, I'm like, I'm like a hunting dog, like I'll just keep running after it. Like it's so easy to distract me. So yeah, being right. Yeah. Yeah. I'd also say that's something that I suffer from deeply, but you know more than me. So you're actually right more of the time, whereas I really am just flying by the seat of my pants, which leads me to my next question. Do you think you're getting smarter or dumber? I don't know. I think in some ways I can find my ability to absorb information at speed getting worse, but I'm definitely smarter in that I'm less reliant on certainty, which makes me maybe sound smarter because I'm like,

Aha, there's some room for nuance and it's not going to kill me to accommodate a different point of view. But that's only if I'm trying, you know, if I'm able to like stop myself from wanting to be right all the time. So dumber in some ways, smart in some ways. What are you? Dumber. 100% dumber. I don't think that's true. I'm trying to recover it. I sent a text to my friend the other day being like, oh, my brain's not working She says well you were mildly to moderately depressed this winter and wouldn't acknowledge She's like, well your brain kind of slowed down because you were in the pits of depression

but also I think I Lost a lot of confidence in my ability to process information and link things like when I was working in Navarra every day I was sort of had to be a top of the news and I had to be able to like information and link things. Like when I was working at Navarro, every day I sort of had to be at the top of the news and I had to be able to like process and connect events that seemed disconnected, but actually had a thread running through them. And now I can see those things happening. Like I was gonna write a sub stack recently

on Mark Zuckerberg and what's happening in Metta. And this idea of like, there's a mass giving in. There's a mass giving into the fuck it voice in your head, which like, fuck it, doesn't matter. Dry January's culture over my friends of the other day. Cause fuck it. People like, fuck it, doesn't matter anymore. Fuck it, I don't care.

And it's like this devil in your shoulder. I saw that link with baby girl as well. It's like, where you give into the voice, which is telling you to follow like the most basest primal urge, which is usually crosses over the selfish one. Do the easy thing. Do the fucking easy thing. Do the thing that feels most comfortable. Zuckerberg has fully

given into like this far right cocoon because it's easier and it feels better for him than constantly being critiqued from the progressive groups that he used to be surrounded by, at least like lean towards. Now he fully identifies as like a libertarian, the change he's made it matter go, wait, people are like calling calling him theater they're not theater. You don't remove the fucking tampons from the bathroom as theater. That is not just playing to a new income president in the name of amoral capitalism. That is a deeply held change that you from the top right. That's petty. When it gets petty that's how you know it's deep and I think he, through M&A, fully like given in because it feels much easier. And I wanted to write a whole thing about this

and I just couldn't, I just couldn't. Someone said that Zuckerberg popped up looking like Drake's Molly dealer. He, he, he looks better than he has in years. And that's because he's now relaxed into just like, I don't give a fuck. And it's easier to turn the guilt I might have felt into an attack on these marginalized identities. And just like, it feels really good at first when you give into like the worst parts of yourself,

or the most selfish parts without any take the safeguards off, take the stabilizers off and just fucking go. And then you crash. It's like you're manic almost, it's like then you crash. I've done it. I've given in to parts of myself, like the basis desires, and it comes from like a long period of repression and not actually listening to yourself at all and like being able to manage them. So they bubble up all at once and you explode and you can do something that feels really good

and really bad at the same time. I think Baby Girl is actually a film about this. Anyway, let's get onto your topic. ["The Big Theory"] Girl is actually a film about this. Anyway, let's get on to your topic. I have a big theory and also like it touches on Baby Girl and my big theory is this. It's that actors have become an extension of the modelling industry and what that means is that we are going to lose out on great performances. I think that in order to have great performances we need to let unattractive or not conventionally attractive actors succeed and you know most importantly of all we need to allow women to age on screen without botox fillers or a Zempik because as just a punter, alright, like I've never, you know, acted, I've never,

you know, directed anything, just as someone who loves a great performance, like the people who I want to see are the Olivia Colmans, I love the Maggie Smiths RIP, you know, the Dame Judi Denchers, right? You know, those sort of like grand doyens of acting, like give me faces which will age into excellence because I don't think that you would get a Maggie Smith if she'd been doing loads of Botox. And sure, I think that a lot of this is an American problem.

Young actors are expected in Hollywood to be models and to be the face of brands and to be fashionable all the time, you know, not just on red carpets. And I do find it very depressing because who will be the next Philip Seymour Hoffman or James Gandolfini. You know, like, where's that gonna come from? I get that this is a very gendered thing. So there are pressures on female actors more to conform to idealized beauty standards. But I also think that there are some incredible

female actors who aren't conventionally attractive, who give incredible performance because they've not just immobilized their faces. So Viola Davis is an example of this. I think she's gorgeous, but she's not been marketed like a Sidney Sweeney or like a Zoe Kravitz or a Zendaya where she's like meant to be marketed as like a model actor hybrid and fuck me like she can act that snotty cry that she does in doubt which got her the Oscar nomination for best supporting actress that year. That's a product of her age and her experience the fact she went to Juilliard but also that she didn't have like a ton of fucking Botox and a ton of like fillers And that's what what delivered this incredible performance

I can get a little bit rule Britannia with this because I do think that there's something very special about British actors And like I was watching Wolf Hall over Christmas You've got Mark Rylance Claire Foy Damien Lewis Harriet Walter Timothy Spall You've got Mark Rylance, Claire Foy, Damian Lewis, Harriet Walter, Timothy Spall. In the first series, you had the late Bernard Hill. And the fact that their faces age is important to the characters that they're playing. It's central to the performance.

And meanwhile, I see someone who I think is a very talented actor, but is getting more and more fillers. And I just feel like, oh, there are gonna be so many amazing roles that you're not going to be able to play. And quite frankly, I wouldn't want to see you play because I don't want to see a filler's face in Wolf Hall or like a period drama. And like, look, you've got, I think, a really extreme example of this, which is Nicole Kidman. She can only move her fucking

eyes. Like, you know, like have entire faces paralyzed. And at least in baby girl, there is a bit where like, I think one of the characters, possibly her daughter, like brings up the amount of Botox and says like, you look like a dead fish. I was like, oh great, at least someone's noticed this. But because of the lips, the lips, that's what she was talking about as well.

Because then the intern comments. At least someone's noticed it like in the fucking film. Whereas in all the other stuff that Nicole Kidman's been in recently, it's like, oh, you just got this woman who can't move her face and no one thinks that's weird. You know at least it has an impact on like the world of the story. And I guess and just to like give an example of like what you can have when you let actors age on screen. The casting on the bear is really good

for this so my favorite character is Tina who starts out as this like very hostile, very aggro, middle-aged woman who's supposed to change and in one episode she gets a bit of praise from Ayo Adabiri's character and there's this moment where she like turns away from the hob and she breaks into this like million dollar megawatt Julia Roberts kind of smile and that was just like a moment I was like Yes, like the heavenly choirs were like singing and like that's what I want to see from older actresses Let's not say that there aren't other ways in which she fits conventional norms of attractiveness. She's fairly slim It's difficult to see who the equivalent of like

Steven Graham might be for female actors. I love Steven Graham because he's in a way He's he's still a character actor, which is he's always playing am I a good man who does bad things or a bad man who does good things? But absolutely love him It's more difficult for a woman to get away from the conventional norms of attractiveness and still be cast. But yeah, what do you think about this? And I've been rambling a bit.

What do you think about my take that actors are just too good looking nowadays and we need more space for normal faces? I don't think you're talking about being good looking at all because this repulses you. I don't think you're talking about being good looking at all all because this repulses you I don't think you're talking about being good-looking at all But when you said Viola Davis isn't conventionally attractive Viola Davis is conventionally attractive Viola Davis just does not have filler face. These are different things what you're talking about conventionally Also not not model. She's not marketed as a model

She's not marketers model because she's older than the modeling age would be that. I think you're talking about slightly different things that all are part of the same, under the same umbrella. I think what you're talking is not conventionally attractive. When it comes to the older ageing actress, you're talking about the conventional process of having your face surgically altered when you are older to try and preserve the illusion of youth, but it fails so you just look mental. Like when I watched Nicole Kidman in Baby Girl, I was said to my friend afterwards,

I was distracted by her facelift the whole time, and it fitted with the character. It did kind of fit with the character, but it's so tight, and this isn't even the Botox, her face is just so tight, and her other parts of herself have aged, so her hands, her neck, and then you have this face, which just looks crazy next to other signs of aging.

It doesn't fit with the schemata, is that the right word? Of the older woman. Her body is older, but her face is not. And there's this awful annoying scene in Baby Girl where she's like, I'm not beautiful. And the guy she's having an affair with, Harry's like, you're so beautiful. And it's like, she's ripped as fuck.

Like she's conventionally, but I kind of got what she meant when she's like, I'm not beautiful, because she's messed up the different parts of stuff so they don't fit. It's like, pick a bit of a doll and put it together. So it's kind of sorry to say this Frankenstein's monster vibes, it gives Frankenstein's monster vibes. And younger and younger, you're seeing women undergo these massive chemist's surgeries like the Lindsay Lohan one, which she's done to fix the damage that had been

done to her face by surgery and everyone's praising. Christina Galera as well has undergone this new facelift technique, which is just like a massive overhaul, a six-figure overhaul. And other parts themselves will show the age. That's not a bad thing. Like, you should be able to show the age because it just doesn't, it doesn't work in conjunction with all these other pieces. You look like a disjointed person. And I think what we're really talking about here and what we could get into is the way that aging is becoming,

you know, there was this brief period where we thought, oh, we're accepting aging actresses, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And funny enough, along with the running out of town of body positivity, the return of the skinny, that's massively reversed. All I hear on the doomsites like TikTok is people talking about how to stop themselves aging now. Women talking about how to stop themselves aging. The red light masks, they're like, this is my high maintenance day to preserve everything else.

It's just like needle, needle, needle, needle, facial, all of these other things that they're doing to just stave off a single wrinkle. And it's trickled into my friends. My friends say the number one thing they're scared of is like these visible signs of aging. And it's fascinating because it hasn't hit me yet. But I wonder if that is because I don't yet have those issues. And I wonder if like it will come at me like a ton of bricks the moment I start clocking wrinkles, grey hairs, because I don't think I'm gonna be exempt from this.

But I think what we're really talking about here is a new frontier in terms of the normalization of surgical tweaks and how fucking mental it looks when it's in motion, because all of these faces are made to be on screen, but they're not made to be in motion. There's a difference. They're made for a still image. Like there are so many, sorry to pick on Nicole Kidman again,

baby girl, great performance. It fits with the character, but there are, there's parts of that film where you see her face, where she's still, and you see Nicole Kidman 20 years ago. And it's like this glimmer of the young woman inside that she used to be like this great youthful beauty, which doesn't mean she's not beautiful now, whatever, but it's a great youthful beauty

because she's managed to preserve that in her face, and then she moves and her hand comes into view and her neck comes into view, and the face looks fucking crazy in motion. And you realize this is a face created for a still image for a red carpet. And that is also a face that so many people are going after among the ranks of the ordinary people. Because now that it's like you were getting these budget versions, the Botox injections through... Filler's out of fashion. It's not about that anymore. It's like save up for a facelift.

Get a blef. You know, get maybe get like a buccal fats kind of falling out of fashion as well. But it's like get these things instead of just like filler because filler puffs up your face and people now want a different a different look a tightened look. I mean, so there's so much to get into here. I think you are totally right to say that my main focus here has been about let people age and in particular let women age on screen because actually when I see female actors like Kate Winslet for instance in Mare of Easttown and it's like

I see signs of aging on your face and body I'm like incredible like there's a realism to this character which like grounds the performance which is just difficult when people are like you know um surgeryed to pieces or like just just too skinny just like too skinny to like live in this world and like have this job that you're telling me that you have um like i think i think it's really important from a performance perspective but there is also a conventional attractiveness thing um you know the fact that Viola Davis, she really blew up when she was that bit older, maybe it's because it's like, okay, well, you're young

and you're not, you're we can't push you as a model. So you're going to have to wait until you know, you're a bit older and you've done a lot of theatre work until you know, you can really blow up on in Hollywood. And I guess I don't know whether, you know, James Gandolfini or Philip Seymour Hoffman or Stephen Graham, like had loads of roles when they were younger. Like again, like maybe it was like when they were in the 30s and 40s, like they really began to blow up. And so maybe it is just a sort of staple thing that like these actors

who don't fit conventional norms of attractiveness, but like, undoubtedly just incredibly fucking talented, like they have to wait a bit, a bit longer until the roles come along. But I guess I just think that them, you know, the it's sad if the only roles for young actors are ones which require them to be conventionally good looking and sort of like model good-looking and you know then they also have to operate as models like you know imagine like a young Stephen Graham was still able to do bits like you know even when he was like 21 or something. So yeah that's something which makes me sad. In terms of what you were saying about like Phil is going out of fashion is that sure in terms of what you were saying about like fillers going out of fashion It's that sure in terms of like the elite of like Hollywood and fashion

Yeah, but now when you look at something like the traitors, which is sort of like a little bit higher-end reality TV But it's like they're meant to be ordinary people it's like you see just so much like Botox and fillers people who are like in their mid 20s and I Sure caveats people can do whatever they want with their faces but I do feel it's really sad if someone at that age can't live with their face as it is if you know what I mean that does that does make me feel quite sad. As for the signs of aging some of them are to hit. I've got this one really wiry white hair which just comes right out the middle of my scalp. And I've got to say I really like it.

And you've mentioned this before, like maybe it's because I'm married and like, you know, we're two people who've made the commitment to age together. And so I really like looking at his crow's feet and like tracing them with my little finger and like vice versa. Whenever he sees my white hair, he's always like, ding like ding ding here it is there's something nice about that but like it does also because of like the online hate I just I get constant commentary on my weight and it has no relation to my weight people are gonna call me fat whatever right they could call they'll still be calling me fat if I was a size zero like it doesn't doesn't fucking matter but definitely the way in

which I hold on to weight has changed now that I'm in my 30s. And like where I you know, where I gain it and how easy it is to lose it like that's changed. And part of me is like, Oh, what if I just started sneakily taking his M pic and not taking anyone or not telling anyone or like what if I started like doing Botox not telling anyone. But yeah, it's a decision I've made not to do that because I think it's important to show faces and bodies which allow the processes of nature to happen to them. If you know what I mean, like, like I just think that's an important thing. And that maybe like, if I could see more of it, my mental health and self-image would be better. So maybe I owe it to try and like hold

that line for as long as I can. Yeah I've got lots to say on this um I'm not completely convinced of this link you're making between like they have to be a model I think that's not the thing that drove it I think a lot of young actors are models I think Viola Davis probably blew up later because of racism in the industry, frankly, to put it bluntly. I don't think it's necessarily the model stuff. I think it's more like racism. I think the model stuff nowadays is because maybe younger actors are just part of the portfolio that you get into. You become the face of a fashion house. You do this and that if you want to be the new it person. Someone like Zendaya models because

Zendaya literally looks like a model. And she's also like a generational movie star. And I don't mean great actress, I mean a generational movie star, very different things. Paul Mescal, great actor, not a movie star. But I have watched a lot of recently, I've been watching a lot of old rom-coms and it's so fascinating to see how, I want to say normal,

actors looked back then, the exact point you're making. And also how discomfited I was at times by their lack of polish. Because I don't even think it's this thing of like, actors today are so good looking. Like I said, the uncanny frozen face isn't attractive per se, but it's a look, it's a uniform look. It's a polish. And also for the men too, like the men are normal looking. One of the sexiest leads of all time is Bill Pullman in While You Were Sleeping because of the charisma that he exudes and the script and the chemistry he has with Sandra Bullock. She of course is- I was thinking when Harry met Sally, like that's a normal looking guy.

I hate Billy Crystal unfortunately, he's so rude, but whatever. But he's a normal looking guy, yeah. But Bill Pullman, he's attractive. By the standards of the 90s, he's very attractive, but he never played a leading man at that point. He wasn't being cast for leading man roles because we were starting to move into that era where you had to like start looking a bit, you know, model-esque as you're putting it but I don't think it's quite models it's just like super super gorgeous and he gets cast in when while you were sleeping and he's amazing because he's got chemistry the script's really good he's got charisma all of these things the Riz as you put it um and but there's other things where I like

seeing the leading ladies I'm like wow they've got like normal teeth like me, you know, like they've like, they, that's some, some people have slightly yellow teeth or they have like, their hair's a bit shit. And, but by their standards, they were, they looked really good. It's just like, we've gone so far to the extreme of how polished people should be. Again, I want to come back to to that word polished because it's not just this idea of like, they're good looking, they're gorgeous. I do think it makes people less attractive when they look this polished, but it is like the agreed upon, what used to be called an Instagram face, now it's changed slightly, but it's the agreed upon look,

the agreed upon style, like these very big cartoon eyes, like the cheekbones, all of that, like the veneers, veneers take you right out of a movie. And I think social media has so much impact on this because as social media started blowing up, it completely warped our expectations of how many beautiful people we are surrounded by and that you see in a day. And that is why you see so many people now with obvious point, but like on the trace of the crazy filler face, it doesn't make them look better. They've got filler blindness or Botox blindness or whatever procedure they've had done because this idea has grown that if you are not

beautiful, beautiful, this massive level, there is something wrong with you inherently and that you're entitled to a form of beauty. So people fuck with their faces to try and get this, but sorry, if you fuck like the only when plastic surgery or treatments or whatever only work if you're doing it to enhance the features you already have, not try and completely change them, then you end up looking like that cat lady who just died. Anne Hathaway is gorgeous. She looks even more gorgeous now than she did at 20. And she's definitely had some like little little botox a little bit and that but she's been

very delicate with it so it just enhances her natural beauty but we you know I see this as a thing all the time it's like in motivational videos people are like don't worry even if you're not this like you've still got this beauty why do we have to be beautiful beauty is inherently seen as like I don't think it's linked to morality anymore it's just linked to worthiness not a revolutionary thing to say but like that has entrenched even more in our minds that you have to be beautiful, that you have to look good. And we were having this discussion before recording about fit like filters on and you were like, oh, because I was talking, what was I saying? Oh, I look like a ghost. And you're like, a child, our producer was saying, oh, it'd be good if,

you know, there was a filter in Riverside. And I was like, I've never once used a filter. I have never once used a filter in my photos or Use one of those facetune things I never will because no matter how buttered if I don't look butters this photos I won't put up. I you know, I'm normal. I'm human but I just think it's a it's a lie that I have Even with my small platform I cannot afford to perpetuate that lie But more than that what it would do to me is I know it fuck me up If I create a perfect version of myself that I see it would fuck me up so badly

I do not need that in my life. So I've never once used a filler or a filler a filter and one time I remember ages ago like 2018 maybe a friend took a picture of me and They sent it to me and they'd facetuned it. And I was like, what the fuck? What the hell? And they didn't think anything of it. They thought they were doing me like a little favour because they facetune all their pics. And I was like, should I be angry? And I was like, no, it just shows how deeply ingrained. And it made me sad. It just made me really sad that this person, I don't think there's anything wrong with my face, but it's like made me really sad that this person

so deep in the Facetune source that they thought everyone else would also massively want that doing as a courtesy. And that was 2018. Think of how far we've come then, how much more powerful these forces have become. And in exerting this idea that we have to look a certain way. I mean, I completely agree with you, but that's boring. So I'm going to try and find something that I disagree with. I suppose with the just taking it back to acting and thinking about like, you know, the people who I always want to see. By the way, Mark Rylance, I do think, is a generational acting talent.

That doesn't mean he always makes the right acting choice. So I went to see Othello at the Globe where he was playing Iago, and I was so excited because I love Othello and I love Mark Rylance, and I was like, wow, these two things are coming together. Everyone else is performing in Shakespearean English. Mark Rylance is the only one doing an Italian accent for reasons I don't fully understand and he

was also I don't know why dressed up as like Mario the plumber so he kind of had like some overalls on like a red cap and when he would do like a big Iago speech, he'd be like, put money in thy purse. Ah. And I was like, what the fuck? Like, why are you the only one doing an Italian accent? But you know what? Big swing, bit of a miss, but you know, his Thomas Cromwell is excellent.

But like, he needs those crags and those lines in his face. And the way in which they react to like light and shadow, the way they work in a period piece, the way in which, you know, there's a sort of lightly amused menace in his Thomas Cromwell, it needs those lines. Like the character lives in those lines on his face. Similarly, like, you know, Timothy Spall, like,

you know, he could look at a railway line and buckle it. Do you know what I mean? Like, but there's something about that face and just the sort of like, you know, the way he's able to exude. And yet Rafe Spall, very hot. Wraith Spall. Yeah, I don't know. Who knows?

Who bloody knows? But like Timothy Spall, like, you know, he can, he looks like someone who's, who's being poisoned from the inside out and he can like bring that to his characters in a way, which is like phenomenal. And there's just so much less room for, I don't know, this is obvious because like patriarchy and misogyny and like, you know, beauty is the tax that women have to pay to exist in the world. But I just wonder how many performances we're losing out on because we don't let women become

actors if they look like that. Yeah, I mean, for you, this is a conversation about acting because that's what you're finding more interesting. And for me, I'm fascinated by the impact on the audience. Like, because it's just, it's trickle down. It's always trickle down, isn't it? Like, these are the visuals we see. And I think that Hollywood is far more influenced by what's happened in social media

than it would ever maybe acknowledge or admit. Because that's the panopticon that you know started throwing. We were never meant to see ourselves this much. We were never meant to see other people this much. Like, yes, of course I'm going to look at my face and think of all the things that I could change and look at my body and think all of the things that are wrong with it, like that are wrong with my body.

When every day I get on a little app, two different apps, where I can literally see the most beautiful people I've ever seen also filtered and face tuned within an inch of their lives. And those images are just thrown at me day after day. Of course, that's gonna impact it. Like myself, like my self image and what I think is normal and what I think is standard.

And then I go out into the world and it's like, oh, people just kind of, at first, well, people look normal and now people are fucking their faces up so much. It's not it's it's actively like, sorry, it's repulsive. And I don't mean that in a mean way. I mean, like it's when you see someone who has the cabbage patch face, you recoil. You're like, what are they done? It's like they haven't they haven't fully escaped the uncanny valley.

And you're a bit like, oh, OK, all right. Yeah, fine. If if we're sticking with the social media thing, here's something which I've been thinking for a while. There is a person who is very, very famous who has rebranded themselves as like a body positivity, anti-diet culture person. And they're very thin. And I think that this whole thing is a scam. Like I think the whole thing is a scam. Like I think the whole thing is a scam.

I have no idea how it is they keep their body that size, nor do I want to know, but I think that actually it's a way of keeping us locked in to feeling really bad about ourselves, which is that you're somebody who is like conventionally very, very good looking, like is quite thin, quite frankly, and you know, makes a living, makes a living being like,

I'm anti-diet culture and eat what you want and rarararara. I think it's fucking horse shit. Okay, I actually, I always have thoughts on this. I think because the culture is so warped, we've lost sight of ourselves. This is what I mean. Like, if you are somebody who is impacted

by the visuals you're seeing every single day and you feel terrible about yourself, you feel like you have to do something and you've lost sight of like self-awareness as well of where you sit in this, you're like, this is impacting me so much. And I do feel these things, even if it doesn't exactly relate

to the way I look in reality, then yes, you might end up rebranding yourself as a body positive. Like I've written, I've talked about this a lot, I've written about like body and the impact on me. And yeah, I still persist in my unhealthy and disordered relationship to food and exercise. But I'm not saying, I'm not saying that somebody who is, um, you know, fitting these conventional norms can't write about the impact of, um, you know, like body fascism, right? Of course, I'm not saying that there is a difference though. There is a difference when you are marketing yourself as a sort of ball walk

against that culture. And yet I think you are also embodying it. And I actually think there's the degree of cynicism to it. Maybe there's self loathing and delusion. But also I think there's a degree of cynicism, which is, you know, ultimately, you feel that you wouldn't have as much of a following if you did have visible belly fat, for instance, like I do. You know, if you had that kind of visible body fat, you couldn't have a big social media following, you couldn't get cast in the roles that you get cast in, you couldn't be a famous, beautiful person.

But also you want to present, or maybe your self-identification involves thinking of yourself as someone who's got integrity and can stand up to this kind of culture and is a feminist and liberal and all, rare, rare, rare, rare. But there's a cynicism to it, which like actually really fucks me off. Like, I don't know, I don't know what their relationship to dieting is. I don't know what their relationship to exercise is. I've got no idea whether or not they get anything done to their face. I'm not, I'm not trying to speculate. What I'm saying is that

it really wouldn't surprise me if that's all what's going on in the background and you know if it ever comes out they'll be like oh don't judge women for their choices I mean you know you're trying to have your cake and eat it or in this case have your cake and not eat it which is be like I'm against diet culture but I'm so deeply imbricated in it and I think that they it it helps people stay locked into self loathinghing. And in a way, I loathe that more than just someone being like, yeah, I'm gonna get all the work done, I'm gonna take all the ism pick. Yeah, but I totally agree with you about the,

like the hypocrisy of that position, et cetera, but I still see this as a position of massive self-denial and the fact that you can't exist within that system really. And like you say, try and have okay, and critique it in the same way, because you have to admit at some point, I'm doing X, Y, Z to maintain this look, but I don't think they've admitted that themselves. So how can they admit it to other people? If you, if you aren't willing to really look at the behaviors and say, I am still participating in this, I am still doing this, I am still conforming. You can't, you can't do both, but people manage to, because also that sells.

All these people who go there for like diet advice or go to different places for, you know, um, this push back against diet culture. Is it not funny that's the most of the ambassadors who really became prominent for this kind of like 2015 style liberal body focus feminism, like a gorgeous and thin. Like it's we we are also responsible for stuff we consume. We are responsible for gravitating towards these these people at the same time. You can like there are so many people out there who are like, I do this and that. I remember the fitness influencers of the 2010s, right? Who claimed that they were eating this,

eating whatever they wanted and doing whatever they wanted. And then loads of them came, and I followed them all, and then loads of them came out later down the line saying, actually, you know what, I was kind of starving myself or eating this crazy restricted diet, and I was exercising way more and it was making me miserable and all the things I posted about wasn't true, blah, blah, blah.

Yeah, I fucking know that, because I was doing that too. Like, because it's the only way to maintain the physique you had. But it's this mass lie and delusion, this idea that you can really have, you can really conform to the very strict parameters society expects of your body,

or demands you need to have in order to feel worth something in the currency of social media, in the currency of the internet nowadays, and also get to participate in all these things. You can't, you can't. And I don't, the word sacrifice is the wrong word here. As I've said before, it's not sacrifice, it's restriction.

If you want to participate in that culture, if you want to live up to the standards demanded of like this horrible misogynistic society, this body fascist society, you are going to have to restrict yourself to a degree that is really unhealthy and you're going to have to accept that. And nowadays, what's worse is I'm seeing people online saying that as a motivational thing. Like they're saying, we're getting the dregs of Tate's language. This is a swap I've noticed. We are now starting to see that you are a pathetic worm,

you need to fucking stop stuffing your face. Maybe we had that 20 years ago and it came back now, but like we are getting, you need to like sharpen up, sort your life out, stop doing this, stop doing this, drink water in the morning, one matcha till lunchtime. That's what you need. You need to restrict yourself. I'm seeing that. That's getting fed to me. And it's, you know, it's framed by these women. We've got women Andrew Tates. We've got women Andrew Tates in the fitness

world who are coming to the mainstream core and more people accepting it. They've existed in their own subculture until now, but it's starting to become restriction, that nothing good is, nothing tastes as good as skinny feels is being repackaged to us again. I don't know. I think, I think just to like bring it back home to the acting thing before we move on to, to I'm in big trouble. Like I was thinking about this when Maggie Smith died. Like an incredible actor whose most exciting roles came in old age when they had that craggy lined face and they could just really go to town and sort of like enjoy playing older characters. And she talked about having felt quite lucky that she wasn't considered a dish. Now, I look back on her in the 60s and 70s,

I go, you're a dish, but I don't think that she was necessarily cast as like a romantic leading lady. And I think that her ability to hone her craft through playing character actors meant that we got Maggie Smith, Maggie Smith, kind of in her old age. There are lots of actors who sort of like came up through playing character actors and you now see them hitting their stride like

having got a bit older. I mean I talked about Philip Seymour Hoffman and James Gandolfini, Stephen Graham, you know Viola Davis had to take every, you know as she put it, you know, she had to take every, you know, welfare mother and crack, you know, she had to take every, you know, welfare mother and crack head that came her way until she could get her teeth into real proper parts. And I guess I'm just, I'm interested in who those people might be, like who are the character actors now who are going to become the sort of like, you know,

Olivia Coleman or Judy Dench down the line, because those are the people whose performances I want to watch. Like, you know, I know that like, Zendaya is really beautiful and a movie star, but I just don't actually feel excited to see her on screen. There is not a film which for me makes me go, yes, I want to see that person.

And actually someone who, who is having a, career renaissance and I think because they're embracing roles which are interesting and you know one of them in particular required them to not be so good looking is Sebastian Stan who is like you know Marvel body, Marvel face, like chiseled jaw and the two roles that have like earned him like the critical plaudits this year have been that have like earned him like the critical plaudits this year have been a different man is that what it's called? Yeah maybe something like that. Which is actually all about like you can change your face but you bring your problems with you which is like you know and casting a very good-looking actor is like you know great way to do it and then the apprentice where he plays Donald

Trump. I'm like okay like if you keep picking these roles which are interesting and take you away from being like, you know, lantern jaw, pouty lips, like I can buy that you're an interesting actor. Like keep going, I want to see it. But it's again, it's just, it's so unfair that this space is so much more available to men. Like I want more Olivia Colmans.

I want more Olivia Colmans. I want more Olivia Colmans. Any, anything to add other than the desire for more Colmans mustard? Just that if you have filler blindness, please God, take a long look in the mirror and maybe get someone else to tell you the truth about the filler blindness. Cause it's, I've seen some of the best faces of our generation ruined by filler

blindness. And also maybe the thing to remember is that faces for me anyway, are most beautiful in motion. And like, you know, you can't shag an Instagram account. You can't shag an Instagram account. And it would, much as many men have tried. You know, like beetles that like end up like fucking like beer bottles because they they're shinier than the real thing. What? They stop being able to mate with their own species. No. Because they see like a shiny green beer bottle. Yes. In the animal kingdom it happens.

They're shagging beer bottles. Yeah. I have... Wait, wait, wait. Beetles are shagging beer bottles. Yeah, I have. Wait, wait, wait. Beatles are shagging beer bottles. Yeah, there are like certain Beatles which like because the beer bottle is like the most perfect shape that their beetle mate could be in the most shiny version. The males keep trying to shag them instead of females of their own species. I mean, yeah, they're like, Whoa, this is a big female. This is giving connected to what we were talking about when it comes to static imagery, porn, and the choice of the porn or like, how would you how would you put this the the fantasy of the unattainable OF worker over like a real sexual experience? That's the beer bottles analogy I think. Right, what's this? All right so this is I'm in big trouble which is our regular dilemmas segment

and if you are in big trouble or little trouble or medium trouble, if you have an inkling of a problem of any kind just email us at if i speak at NavarraMedia.com. That is if I speak at NavarraMedia.com. Do you want to take it away? This is a long one. Right. Dear If I Speak, recently I found myself in danger of becoming part of the growing group of men of all ages with hardly anyone they could genuinely describe as a friend.

Last September I started university, which of course is a big and sometimes overwhelming change, but since then I wouldn't say I have made any proper new friends. In sixth form I was in a close group of four people and I started to take it for granted I would always be in a similar group of friends even though it's obviously a far more active process. I think the fact I'm gay is adding to how difficult I'm finding it to make new friendships. I say that because as a gay guy there are many groups of guys you could never fit into by being gay, not because they're necessarily homophobic, but because they're part of

the Jimbrows slash alpha male stereotype who judge your social ranking based on how masculine you are. Of course it would be impossible for many guys, straight or gay, to fit in with them. However, even among groups of other guys you never know if you members will be slightly homophobic and therefore try and sideline you, as the rest of the group inevitably chooses them. Guys are just far less used to or able to interact with gay guys. Of course many gay guys become part of all girl groups, and indeed my friendship group

in sixth form was two other girls and one straight guy. However, I find it impossible to join a group like this because I always assumed from the outset that a group of girls may want an all-girl group, which is completely their right. But I still never join groups that wouldn't mind accepting a gay guy. And once the gay guys join the group, it feels impossible for another to join because they're already occupying the sort of unique spot of gay best friend. Something I've found particularly annoying is how on three occasions when I've actively tried to become friends with other gay guys, all three have subsequently tried to get with me despite me constantly saying I wasn't looking for a relationship with anyone and that my type unfortunately

mostly turns out to be straight guys ruling out any relationship. That will change sweetie. I try to make friends with societies but the social events are mostly just drinking events, again split into groups of guys and girls so I have the same problem as before. To add to this I'm quite academic and I like to spend a lot of time studying, so I don't know how much of this is just down to me not going to nightclubs and things as much as other students. For example, my flatmates went out on Tuesday night until 3am and I honestly would not have gone with them even if I were closer friends. I feel like I can't really talk to my old friends about this as it would be embarrassing to admit I haven't

made any new ones, especially as we consider ourselves quite trendy, so it would almost feel like I'm outing myself as a loner with no friends. Worse, I dread ringing my parents when at university because they always ask what social events I'm going to and I have to either embellish a little or admit I've not done anything. Having only recently come out to them, I don't particularly want to talk about this specific aspect of how being gay makes it harder for me. Therefore, in the absence of other people to talk to about this, and as I love listening to podcasts, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I really don't want to find myself with friends in 10 years time. Best wishes from a listener if I speak. Ash, go on. All right, special one. I'm gonna say this with all love. I'm gonna say this with nothing but love and absolutely no judgment here.

And so this is really important because Because it's a bit of tough love. You are getting in your own way to an insane extent. You are so wedded to your sense of self and who you are, that you are unable to take a step in any direction. So you're feeling lonely. But because you've got a sense of yourself as being trendy and that you've got to live up to it, you can't talk about your feelings of loneliness to your old friends. You've got a sense of how being gay might, you know, rub up against, you know, the homophobia of like straight guys, but like you also haven't tried that. So

you're not stepping in that direction. you're not stepping in that direction. You're not stepping in the direction of your parents because you've just come out to them. You're not stepping in the direction of making friends with other gay guys. You're not stepping in the direction of making friends with, you know, straight girls or mixed groups. I'm not trying to say that being gay won't make any difference. I can't, you know, I can't, you know, say that from my own experience how much it does or doesn't. But seeing as you are so paralyzed in the place where you are in every single direction, I think that the

problem here is your fear, your fear of other people, your fear of being judged by them, your fear of having to live up to some standards which exist outside of you. And that's the thing that kind of has to go. It's fine to be more academic and not like clubbing, but what makes friendships a shared experiences? I didn't end up going clubbing all the time with my best friends at uni,

but I went to the club sometimes. And sometimes doing it even when I didn't really want to do it. So you've got that shared experience and then you've got people you can go to the library with and like, you know, you can hang out in the cafe with. And you know, other things which were very important to me were like political things and they were very intense,

but like, you know, also just went to some like shit club nights and it works, you know, it works. Whereas if you're always holding yourself back and expecting people to come and find you, you know, that's not gonna happen because everyone's as anxious to make friends as you are. I think that it is on you to access the bravery that I think is there. I think you are capable of being braver and being less paralyzed by fear and

the thing that you need to let go of is a fear of being a bit embarrassed because you know what a little bit of embarrassment won't kill you and you've got to take the risk of being embarrassed sometimes to connect with other people. Let go of your investment in your sense of self. I think stop prejudging people. Stop prejudging what they might be like. Because, you know, sure, you might encounter reactions which aren't good, right? Like you might encounter some homophobia from this quarter, you might encounter some territorial attitudes from like, you know, a gay guy and a group of friends. But the one thing's for sure is that you're never gonna make friends if you

don't try and and if you just anticipate the worst all the time and then act as if the worst has already happened. No, it hasn't already happened, it's happened in your own head. And I suppose the last thing you mentioned is that you found it quite annoying that like, you know, other gay guys have made a move on you when you've wanted to be friends. having having spoken to friends of mine who are gay I've heard it from both sides I've heard it from people being like yeah I find it very annoying that it's difficult to make a friendship without there being like a kind of sexual element front and center but I've also heard from the other side from gay guys

who are like yeah but like just because I make a pass at you doesn't mean it's a big deal you know I I'm not saying that that's right, but I guess I'm saying that like, I can see how that's an attitude that exists. And maybe it's about meeting in the middle and it's about saying, you establishing like, hey, actually I'm not into that. And then it's up to them to sort of respect

that boundary afterwards. So you've just got to be like, okay, someone makes a move on me, that's not the end of the world, if I establish my boundary and they respect it. Yeah, I mean, I do wanna come back on that point about having a past made at you, because I think the special one did say to these people,

I'm not looking relationship, this isn't my type, and the past was made anyway, yeah, it's not the end of the world, but they should have fucking respected the boundary in the first place. And if that was, I do think that if that was gender-reverse, like gender-reverse, if that was, was you know a young woman writing into us we'd probably be a bit more strident on that being disrespected and the impact of that. Like if some, if a young woman

says to someone at university, I by the way I just want to be friends from the get-go, like I'm not interested, I don't want a relationship or anything like that, then if the man then can carry on making the past and she's upset about that, I think we'd probably say, yeah, they should have fucking respected the boundary. It's just my note on that. But again, not the end of the world if they made a pass at you.

It's up to you to decide whether, if they apologize and actually listen to you, whether that's a recoverable friendship. Everything Asher said is correct. I'm just gonna give some personal slash practical advice which is it's hard to make friends at university. Some people find it so easy, find whatever. I didn't. I didn't find my proper people until third year and I did a lot of stuff on my own and I made sure that it didn't impinge or impede the things I wanted to do.

Like I love dancing, I love going out clubbing. You don't seem to love that as much. I agree with Ash that occasionally you're gonna have to suck up and go, but maybe you don't love clubbing because the student clubs are shit. I set foot in the student union club once in three years, but I was at university in London. So I insisted on going, I went to the clubs on my own.

I went to like plastic people, those kinds of places on my fucking own. And I met people when I was there. Some of them became like mates, some of them were literally like one time experiences, but I was gaining confidence from the fact I was interacting with these people on my own. And also you could kind of be whoever you wanted to be.

You just, you just were whoever you wanted to be when you're out and about in the town on your own. And I was there to dance. But if you're not someone who's motivated by the need to go out and have a good time on a dance floor, that's something that doesn't feed you. Might not be the same thing, but maybe take the thing at the core of that,

which is the motivating desire, which is going out and finding the thing that you enjoy and doing it, because you're more likely to meet like-minded people, at least have an interaction with someone that makes you feel both less alone and more confident in yourself. The other thing is I got a part-time job. This was necessary. I needed money. But I met lots of people through it. My own age. Go work in a pub or if you can, you might be at fucking Oxford or Cambridge, but if not, try and get a part-time job in a pub or retail.

Retail was great for me, you might be a pub person. Either one of those will not only introduce you to the area, it will introduce you to more people. And again, gives you confidence at the same time as making some money on the side. You are interacting with people every single day, both in terms of customers, but also your workmates. There'll be people you don't like,

but there'll be people you love and you will really relax and it will really boost your confidence. I cannot express how much work is actually like a good thing for socializing when you're in a new place and trying to meet people. That's, that's a plus one. And yeah, like Ash says, unfortunately, you're going to have to do some things that you don't want to do occasionally. That means reaching out to people and saying hi

You might get knocked back. It might be a bit embarrassing. It's fine. It's not the end of the world because one day you won't When you're in seminars talk to people afterwards ask them what they thought have a chat interact with people before your seminars Yes, you're probably not gonna go up to a random person at the library But if you see someone you know go over and say hi Just chat build up the chat a little bit, a little bit, a little bit. Build up some chat with your housemates. Occasionally accompany them on ventures. Ask one of them, you know, for a coffee even if you're not a massive fan. Just try. Try a little bit and it will pay off. But again, I did not find my people properly until my

friendships didn't cement until like the third year. I'm not friends with loads of people from uni still there's like two people that I'm really close to still from university. That's fine I made friendships outside of it and then it took me another X amount of how many years? It's probably 25 when I no it's about 23 24 when I met some of the people in my best friends now But I met more of them when I was about 25 26, but in that time I wasn't like on my own or lonely. I didn't always feel like I'd found my people, but I kept making different friends

and some of them stuck and some of them didn't. Some of them from work, some of them from out and about. You just have to try and talk to lots of people and it's hard and it's difficult, but do it bit by bit and it will seem easier and your confidence will be boosted. That's it. Yeah, I mean, like just part of making friends

is doing some stuff you don't wanna do. And actually even now I'm 32, so part of maintaining friends is doing some stuff you don't wanna do. And actually, even now, I'm 32, so part of maintaining friendship is doing some stuff that I don't wanna do. Yeah, sometimes you just gotta go and do something you don't really wanna do, and that's fine. But then also, sometimes I've had loads of fun

because I'm expecting not to have fun. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, when you have low expectations, something's great. My main thing is, for everything that you don't wanna do, make sure there's two things that you're either doing on your own, and you're not waiting around to try and like, for someone to come along with you,

that you really enjoy, whether that's an exhibition, or going somewhere and reading a certain book that you're really loving. If you're quite academic, go to like a talk or things. You will probably meet people through that, or at least see people that you might see again around the university, if it's university university based. This is the way to build up familiarity and keep moving in the same places. The best way to meet people is consistency

and doing the same sort of habits, weirdly, that bring you into social spaces because you become familiar. That's why people are like, oh, I met my boyfriend at the gym or oh, I met this person because they came into work every single day. That's why I'm saying the job is a useful thing because you're forced every single day to interact with similar people. Also, like the best night out I ever had at uni was, um, me and a bunch of friends were supposed to go to this club night where there were some DJs that I didn't really like, like it's just, it wasn't my kind of music.

Um, and then like me and like half the people managed to get in and then like because of capacity, like the other half of us were like just stuck outside. We were like, oh, this is shit. And the night could have ended there and it could have ended stewing in resentment of like, I didn't even wanna go to this in the first place, da da da da da. But we started like walking around

and then there was like someone's 40th birthday party where they just like hired out one of the arches near London Bridge. And so we just went there and like the security guard was like, do you know the person and the person's name had been written on the shortboard outside. We're like, yeah, we're all friends with Rachel. And then like Rachel was like, Oh, sure. Fine. They could fucking come in. And so we got absolutely trashed. Then went to a pub where there was some Ecuadorian musicians, um,

and like hung out with them and got even more drunk and then like did karaoke. And then a friend of mine got so into singing a Lady Gaga song, he was like trying to like give performance on the bar and then we all got thrown out. But he like got like carried out physically by the bouncer while still singing Bad Romance, which was incredible. And that was one of those like real like,

okay, this is like gonna be a lifetime memory of like a good time. and like some of those people I don't see anymore some of them still really good friends with none of it would have happened if I'd gone I don't want to go to that club night. I Think that's a good place to leave it so Guys go to that club night. No, don't don't feel forced to go to that club night There's other options, but whatever your metaphorical equivalent is, do that.

Okay, this has been If I Speak. I'm Moira McLean. You are? Still hungover from that one night 11 years ago. That's a way to put people off. Okay, see you next week. Bye. Bye. Thanks for watching!