Love Lives - Female rage, Tom Cruise, and pickles: Best moments from Love Lives in 2023

Episode Date: December 22, 2023

It’s been an incredible first year for Love Lives. After relaunching at the start of the year, we’ve been lucky to speak with a host of guests, including Hollywood actors, award-winning musicians, and bestselling authors.From female rage, healthcare injustice and violence against women, to queer representation, stunt work in film and a lifelong love of pickles, our guests have had some incredible stories to tell.A huge thank you to our wonderful guests and everyone who watched and listened this year – exciting things to come in 2024!Check out Love Lives on Independent TV and YouTube.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/millenniallove. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton.

Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Hello and welcome to this special end of year edition of Love Lives. It has been an incredible year for the show, which regular listeners will know that we relaunched at the start of this year with Name, Look and Feel. We are so thrilled with how Love Lives has started off. We have had an incredible lineup of guests with actors, musicians and best-selling authors joining us to discuss the different loves of their lives and how they have impacted them. So without further ado, allow me to share with you some of our favourite moments from the season. One of the subjects that came up a lot this season was female rage and healthcare injustice.

Two brilliant writers spoke to us about this when they were discussing their work. I was absolutely filled with a rage that was so murderous and furious. It wasn't just a kind of oh someone's left the lid off the milk how annoying it was like if someone does that again I'm going to stab them to death with a knife. It was just the worst place to be and it was so surprising. And I talked to my friend Trish Halpern who I co-host podcast uh postcard for midlife with and I said Trish I've got to tell you something I think I've got a brain tumour she said I've got cancer I've got I've got something awful going on I've just

thrown a hoover down the hall I've attacked you know it was just we just we had the same thing and then we thought well that's a bit weird haven't we both been going through the same thing and then they went to the GP I went to the GP twice and they offered me antidepressants and I said I just don't think you know that might work for somebody it just doesn't feel like the right thing for me I've just got no joy in anything and you know these night terrors getting worse and worse um and then I did some research and found uh I suppose you would call her the medical expert who kicked off what is now the menopause revolution, Dr. Louise Newsome. And I went to see her and she said, well, you're going through this thing called the

perimenopause, which is the 10 or 12 years before the menopause. So the perimenopause is when all the hot flushes and all the kind of traditional symptoms that we sort of laugh at women getting older for having happen. But there's over 40 symptoms and there's no blood test that tells you this. symptoms that we sort of laugh at women getting older for having happen. So you but there's over 40 symptoms and there's no blood test that tells you this but it you know every woman will have one of the symptoms. If you're losing nights and nights of sleep and you can't regulate your mood and all your oestrogens disappearing and your progesterone and your testosterone it's it's a hormonal

depletion that's causing absolute chaos. I mean hearing hearing you say all that, it just makes me so angry because I was going to ask, why don't we know all this? I know the reason why we don't know all this, because women's health is not prioritised. What are the things in your subconscious or in your emotional life that nudges you toward needing to write this story? And I think the propeller has to be a very strong emotion. And I think if you've never written a novel before,

maybe rage is the one that will do it, you know? And as you get further along in your career, it can simply be, like, extreme curiosity or affection or whatever. But, like, maybe to get that first one over the line, because it's such a weird thing to do, to write a novel. Like, to, like, just come out with, like, I think I'm capable of inventing a whole landscape and many people in

it and it will be important yeah people will care and pay 60.99 on the hardback for it it's a nuts thing to think about yourself so grandiose and self-important so maybe rage has to be the propelling emotion a few of our guests this season have pretty major public profiles so naturally one of the things we wanted to ask them about was how they navigate fame and their thoughts on fame generally. I was like 21. Yeah which is very young to be very very famous and successful. I was 21 and I had I didn't really feel pressure but I had like I had a bit feel pressure, but I had like, I had a bit of money. And I also had like the wrong people around me. People who, I don't know, some people took advantage of it.

Also, I took advantage of it. So I'm not blaming them people. Like I was just a 21 year old who was in a position where music was happening, going out was happening, alcohol was happening. And I was consumed by all this stuff. So I was probably an egotistical 21 year old who thought the sun shines out of his a** or something like that basically and I fell into I don't know a lot of a lot of problems it was just to do with like London life too so I moved home and and that was the best thing for me and now my coping mechanisms for I don't I hate the word calling myself fake i'm not you know i mean i

still get the training and i still do normal things you know i mean just people come and say hello and i sound but now it's like completely different like i need routine in my in my day to day just to be just to get myself on a level. I need exercise, I need good eight hours sleep. Like I sound boring, but like, I feel like to do this job at a 10 out of 10, you need to be an athlete. I myself feel confusion about like how much public attention is desirable how much is healthy how much just kind of messes you up okay so my first book prep came out in 2005 and um

in the 18 years since then the amount of time that a writer is expected to be on a screen has changed greatly. Like in, you know, 2005, you and I would not, there would not have been cameras. I would not have been wearing the minimal amount of makeup that I'm even wearing. I know this is something Sally Rooney has spoken about a lot and she's kind of totally withdrawn from the public eye because it's just very, it's very strange dynamic and it's not at all what we kind of go into it for. But it's like the world we live in now with social media,

everyone is almost encouraged to want to be famous. And if not famous, have a degree of attention on them. Like I think if you look at studies on Gen Z, the top desired job is to be a social media influencer, you know, have those eyes on you yeah and it's just so interesting that that is now something that people are kind of glamorizing and fetishizing when actually the reality of it seems quite unappealing oh yeah yeah yeah and I think I mean it seems like almost anyone who has gotten a true taste of fame has some degree of ambivalence

about it or you know like obviously it's it's very easy to find you know documentaries or stories about celebrities who really you know were very talented got recognition and and struggled a lot one subject that comes up time and time again whenever I speak to women on this podcast is violence against women. And we were very lucky to have the brilliant A-list actor, Hayley Atwell, with us this season. And one of my favorite moments from that episode

was when she talked about harassment when women go out at night and the things women have to do in order to feel safe. I remember doing my own version of that when I was, you know, when I was clubbing sort of as a teenager. And if I was in the, you know, I'd often like to go to gay clubs because I could dance freely and feel just for me much safer. And I remember, though, when I was in clubs and the men would come up to me and I felt they were quite adamant or aggressive on the dance floor with me. would come up to me and I felt that they were quite adamant or aggressive on the dance floor with me the thing that the the thing that actually it's so it's it feels kind of so crazy uh that you know women have to feel unsafe just dancing but the but if I was resilient um if I was sort of backfooted or try and walk away I had this real fear that if I offended the guy,

that wouldn't make me safe, that would make him angry. And so there's this, and I feel that you can feel, hear her in the music doing that as well, but if you do something a bit mad, they back down. And so I used to do really ugly, intense dancing at them that also was totally out of rhythm all of a sudden and almost be like manically into them. And it would last like 10 seconds before they were like, gonna back down, she's crazy. And it would be like an armor that I had on me. We also spoke to the musician Zara Larsson

about the realities of being a young woman coming up in the music industry. I think a lot of people who have power in the industry, they know they do. They know they have power. And a lot of people abuse that. And I think that's what kind of turns them on. Not necessarily because they really want to sleep with you.

They just want to... They just want you to know that I have the power to make you uncomfortable right now and that's what I'm gonna do you know what I mean have you ever kind of gone to the next step of like reporting behavior or like complaining in any kind of formal way no but it's so up that some of the things that have happened have been so obvious. And it has happened like in front of other people. And what kind of thing? We could like be sitting at a dinner.

Yeah. And there's all these people that I know and that everybody knows. And that it could be like, you know, somebody's putting a hand on my thigh. Or saying like, I'm going to come to your hotel room and I'm going to do like, getting like way too close and personal, keep touching. And it's like, you all see this, like this is happening right in front of you guys, but no one says anything because it's not to the point where if i would have gone to the police i said what yeah yeah it's not illegal it's not criminal but those like minor things when you stack them

on top of each other and it like happens and it's just it's just casual you know it's not that deep which is what they would say you know what i mean so there's certain people i know like i would never be alone with you like i just know i would never be in a room alone with you and that's what I'm saying there's certain people that other people say don't be alone and yeah I just know like I just know the vibe and I would just always bring my manager I would always have my mom like I would have somebody there to make sure that um I'm safe yeah because for a lot of and I'm lucky enough that I've been able to have that because a lot of people you know they travel far and uh you end up in a room and you just want to make your dreams come true and you do whatever it takes and then you're like put in this uncomfortable

situation and sometimes they make you feel like well if you want it yeah you know what I mean so crazy to think that it sounds like such a cliche for lack of a better word of course it happens it does it does happen and I think I wouldn't really say I've gotten to the point where people wouldn't try me um I think it actually changed starting in the industry so young, I think I felt such a shift from when I was 17 to 18. Because now I'm legal. Right. You know? Yeah.

Which is so creepy. So that almost invited other kind of people. Which is like, you're a f***ing old man. Like, why are you even looking at me like that? But I really felt a shift as turning 18. It was like, whoa. Yeah. But I really felt a shift as turning 18. It was like, whoa. Yeah. can. Dr. Johanna Sam and her team are researching how both indigenous and non-indigenous youth cope with cyber aggression, working to bridge the diversity gap in child psychology research.

At UBC, our researchers are answering today's most pressing questions. To learn how we're moving the world forward, visit ubc.ca forward happens here. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era, or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals.

No pressure to be who you're not. Just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca. Another subject that came up a lot this season was friendship,

which should be no surprise with a lot of guests choosing some of their closest friends as the loves of their lives. I think that no one really talks about what prepares you for the first time that that happens in your 20s when you realise that your friends are kind of either moving off in different ways or their lives are changing and yours is maybe not changing in the same way and and how you navigate that and I remember in my 20s that being such a painful process and part of that pain was just not expecting it and I definitely think that while female friendship is one of the most incredible things the I for sure know that like from as early as I could remember the expectation is that you remain friends until the day you die and if you don't then that's a reflection on you and that says something about your character so for example even now when if I was to tell someone that you know I have friends that I don't speak to

anymore I can see it in their eyes that the look is what have I what have you done as a person to have created that and so I think that there is that expectation and so in your 20s if you haven't experienced that before it can be so painful because you feel like this should not this friendship should not be breaking up or this friendship should not be changing or becoming more distant you know in the same because especially when you're younger you also just have more. So you can be time intensive with your friendships in a way that as you get older, you just can't necessarily do that. But I think when you go through it the first time, for me, what I realized was that the thing that was making it really painful was expecting everything to remain exactly the same. And if it didn't remain exactly the same, that meant that we didn't care about each other or that we didn't love each other.

And I have learned from now having gone through at least about three iterations of this, you know, I'm in my early 40s, that that just isn't the case. And also, if a friendship doesn't work out or if it drops off or if it's just someone you haven't spoken to for a few years, it's OK. Like, it's OK. We're not meant to have everyone in our lives that we have met since birth. You know, that's just not how life works, right? Finally, we loved speaking to two brilliant authors, Nicola Dinan and Nisha Dolan, about the evolving ways that queer relationships

are being represented in fiction. Tom tells Ming that he came out late and then adds, nobody wants to admit that people leave the closet, but not the room. That really struck me. What do you think Tom means when he says that to Ming? So I think there's a sense of lingering shame that a lot of queer people deal with.

And also, you know know I think with stories of queer people generally they often exist in extremes like we have these stories of like queer misery but then we have these like unrelenting stories of queer joy and it's like well in reality does like something more in the middle exist you know that you have maybe this very liberating act and if you're lucky to have people around you who love and accept you for who you are um then that can be like extremely liberating but at the same time you still harbor all of those things that you've heard when you were younger and all of those little things that make you

feel less worthy that have a cumulative effect and how you relate to others in the present. So I think that's what I was trying to say when you know I wrote you know people leave the closet but not the room and in the book like Ming and Tom with regards to Tom's sexuality you know his identity as a gay man and Ming's life as a trans woman both of them haven't faced many barriers Tom is this you know middle-class white boy who grows up in South London with like very well-meaning very white parents and who are very open and accepting even though they often occasionally you know not even occasionally often make blunders you know and and who are very open and accepting, even though they often,

not even occasionally, often make blunders. And Ming comes from a relatively financially privileged position. She's able to afford hormone replacement therapy. And that means jumping through a very long NHS queue that's very inhumane and a huge problem for trans people in the UK today. But despite those things and despite those barriers, they still face difficulties

with respect to their own identities. And I think in that way, we almost underestimate those little things we pick up as children and as teenagers, you know, before we have a real sense of ourselves or before we formed a fully actualized version of ourselves. And I really want to examine in the absence of all those barriers, what's left behind and how does it affect us? all those barriers, what's left behind and how does it affect us? One label that has been applied to your work, which I think says a lot about our culture, is it's been called casually bisexual. To me, that label kind of just highlights how unaccustomed people still are to seeing queer relationships in fiction.

Well, I think it implies the existence of formerly bisexual literature. And I want to find the literature where we fucking get to go to the Met business class bisexual please but um yeah but I think what it's getting at is that it's seen as rare for literature to not problematize the fact that someone is gay and make it the source of conflict in the novel. There's a grain of truth there in terms of what art, mainstream culture has traditionally upheld and celebrated. But I also think

for decades at least, there have been books that have obviously done that and for centuries there have been books where we all know the characters are gay even though it's not stated in some ways that the original casual like the picture of Dorian Gray is way more casual than my book in that it doesn't a single time have overt allusions to homosexuality so there's a grain of truth in terms of the need for it to be as easy for a random person walking into a shop to pick up books where the characters are gay and it's not a problem but there's also an element of is this really that new that's it for this year thank you so much for watching and listening to love lives this season uh we will be back in 2024

with more guests and more episodes. So please stay tuned and I will see you then. Whether you're in your running era, Pilates era or yoga era, dive into Peloton workouts that work with you. From meditating at your kid's game to mastering a strength program, they've got everything you need to keep knocking down your goals. No pressure to be who you're not, just workouts and classes to strengthen who you are. So no matter your era, make it your best with Peloton. Find your push. Find your power. Peloton. Visit Peloton at onepeloton.ca.