That Gaby Roslin Podcast: Reasons To Be Joyful - Charly Clive

Episode Date: December 5, 2022

On this week's episode Gaby chats with actress Charly Clive, star of 'The Lazarus Project'. She talks candidly with Gaby about being diagnosed with a brain tumour age 22. Her stage show 'Britney: Friends and Nothing More' is a sketch show about love - but which of these two girls will you fancy more? It sold out at the Edinburgh Fringe and is now coming to the Soho Theatre from the 12th - 22nd December 2022. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

And welcome to That Gabby Roslin podcast, part of the A-Cast Creator Network. My guest this week is Charlie Clive, actress, comedian and all-round lovely girl. Her show, Brittany, Friends and Nothing More, is at the Soho Theatre from the 12th to the 22nd of December. And trust me, it is hilarious. Trust me, this is one person that you want to spend a lot of time with. You laugh, you think, you cry, and you will adore her too. Don't forget, you can keep up to date by following and subscribing, please, to the podcast, where a new episode is released every Monday. Leave us a rating on the Apple Podcast app.

And whilst you're there, why not leave us a review? We love to hear your thoughts. Now, on with the show. Charlie Clive. So, to say I was obsessed with the Lazarus Project might be an understatement. Oh, my word, how good was that? Thank you. Yeah. I thought it was good. I loved it. So this was June time that it came out and everyone, it must be great to be in a show that everybody's buzzing about.

Yeah, it's really exciting. It's so nice. And seeing billboards for it and stuff is quite a bizarre and exciting feeling. You've got so it's a shame people can't see you. But the smile is enormous. Absolutely enormous. So Charlie, you trained as an actress, but I know you took some time away from that. Yeah, that's right. I trained in New York. My mom's American, Mexico. So I've got American citizenship. So as soon as I could, I was like I want to get out of England. And I went to America to be an actress. And then it just didn't, it wasn't working at all.

And the only job I got was for a radio advert where I had to pretend to be Kate Middleton. Can I hear you, Kate Middleton? Yes. It's just me being sort of terribly pot and really, really sort of sweet and polite. That's what the works. Hello, Kate. Thank you. That's all they wanted anyway.

So they just wanted a legitimate English accent. And that's the only job I got when I was living in New York as an actor. So I gave up and I became a baker. And then I moved back to England because of health things. And then acting happened and it was sort of the maddest thing. And I'm so glad everything worked out the way it did. But it was very unexpected. I'm so glad it did because it got me to meet you.

And I remember seeing, we were talking about Pure the very first time I met you. But also what I do want to talk about is you, I love the way you sort of sweat past. the medical stuff, because you told me all about Brittany. Yeah. And people who haven't read anything or heard you interviewed before. I'm happy to talk about it if you'd like to. Yeah, no, let's please talk about it. It was a brain tumour.

Yeah. A brain tumour. Large pituitary adenoma, which is a type of brain tumour, which I didn't realize I had until it was enormous. So take me back to how this all came about. I was living in the States at the time and simply couldn't afford healthcare, didn't have insurance, and was not, I was 22 and I was absolutely not remotely thinking about my health. And basically I stopped getting my period. And I was still in drama school at the time and everyone was telling me it was probably just the stress of drama school, which I didn't really buy into.

I wasn't particularly stressed, but I thought, yeah, okay, that's what it is, that's what it is. don't need to go to a doctor. I'm definitely not pregnant. So that's, that was my big concern is, was I pregnant? And I was like, no, I'm not. Everything's fine. And I sort of just put it out of my mind, really, and it was surprisingly easy to do that. My peripheral vision was a bit funny in my left eye, but I did see someone when I was in England about that, and they said that maybe I was on my phone too much. Is that what they said? Yeah. And they said, if you're using your phone at night, if you're looking at your phone in bed, then sometimes that can be quite bad for your eyesight. And I was like, oh, that's interesting. I mean, both my parents,

work on computers a lot for a lot of the day and I don't think anyone's ever said that to them but fine maybe it is a generational thing and again when the medical professional tells you something you just you just take their word for it so then um I came back to England for Christmas having not been home for like a year and went to my GP who I've known since I was a baby just to get all the tests out the way because of the good old NHS and um I told him that I hadn't had a period for a while but everyone just said I was stressed out. And he said, well, let's look at this properly and found I had a hormone that they weren't expecting in my bloodstream

called prolactin, which is more common if you're going through menopause. And he was like, okay, well, this shouldn't be happening right now. So let's do an MRI just to make sure your pituitary gland is all right. And your pituitary gland is the sort of hormone center of your brain. And then I got this MRI and they called the next day and said, you have an enormous growth on your... Oh, God, you've got that on the phone? Yeah. They told you.

They said, you have to come back in because you've got this growth that we need to sort of look at more and talk to you about. And they didn't say tumour at the time. Were you on your own when you went to see them? No, I was living at my parents' house because I was just back for Christmas. So I was only supposed to be back for two weeks. And then they basically told me that day when I went in that I wasn't going to be getting on a plane anytime soon. And so I don't drive. So my parents sort of took me everywhere.

So it was pretty much, it was very infantilizing really. I felt like a little kid, which actually maybe was a nice thing because I absolutely was allowed to be taken care of. And then very quickly we realized it was this tumour, which thankfully was benign, but we didn't find that out for a very long time. Oh, you didn't know straight away that it was benign. We didn't know. And we knew that the treatment, well, they sort of have to treat.

I mean, I wish I knew more about it. You'd think I would, but it sort of all went in. and out the other. Yeah, when you're going 22 and you're going through all of that, you're not going to take it all of it. Yeah, exactly. And but we didn't know, they suspected it was benign, but they absolutely can't tell you that in case it isn't.

And so we didn't know until quite a while after the surgery that it definitely wasn't. But we knew that it would probably go back, which it did a year later. And then I had radiotherapy for six weeks, which has stopped it completely in its tracks, which is really good news. But it was a very scary ordeal, obviously. It's so easy for me to talk about it now, really. objectively, I suppose, because it was five years ago

and so much has happened because of it. My best friend, Ellen Robertson, moved in with me and my family and put her life on hold by choice. I didn't have the choice, but she was like, yeah, why not? And we wrote this show about the brain tumour, which was sketch comedy, which we took to Edinburgh, which we call Britney. There we go, that's the Britney link. People might be thinking they're still,

what was Brittany? They're talking about brain tumour. We called the brain tumor Brittany because it was much easier than saying brain tumor all the time. Didn't you say something to the nurse when you came through about Britney? Yeah, when I came, when I was in the ICU and I came around off all the insane medication, I asked where Brittany was and could I see Brittany? And they brought Ellen in because they assumed that that must be Ellen's name. And they're like, oh, there's a young woman here that might be called Brittany.

And I was like, not her. Where's Brittany? And Ellen had to explain to them, she's asking if she can see the brain tumor. And they were like, oh, gosh, no. No, we've not kept it in a jar for you. And I was like, oh, I wanted to see her. I wanted to look around the eyes. And then off the back of our show, a few years later,

we developed it as a comedy pilot for BBC, which was extremely exciting. And then filmed that. And that... So I say all the time it's sort of the best, worst thing that ever happened to me. Because if it hadn't been for Brittany, I probably never would have bizarrely sort of found the confidence to get back into...

acting and writing, which is the thing I always really wanted to do. But having had my confidence not, I thought, well, it's not going to happen. And then I suppose getting the tumour, I was like, well, if I'm not going to, why, why not try, why not go for it? And Ellen was like, we're doing it. So that's it. So Ellen literally stopped, like you say, stopped in her tracks and just became your, your, well, she was your best friend, but your sister, your confidante, your everything.

And sort of like the morale keeper of the. but my whole family, she was able to sort of make sure that the life I sort of was forced into at that time was as entertaining as possible. And that enabled my parents to sort of get a break from it all. And I think it also gave them perspective of like, okay, yes, that's your daughter, but she actually isn't a child. And it's important that I needed to sort of regain independence and autonomy as quickly as possible. But it was very, very easy to regress into complete childhood being in my childhood bed. room, you know, my parents just across the hall and the whole thing was so strange. And also, I was 22 and I definitely felt like young for my age.

And the whole thing was very obviously overwhelming. But because Ellen was there, we ended up having so much fun unexpectedly. How incredible the weird twists of life. Because you weren't expecting any of it. You went home for Christmas. Yeah. Suddenly, Brittany is in your head. You're in ICU.

Your best friend moves in and you have laughter around you. Laughter is so important, isn't it? And so much laughter too. We just had this huge space to just mess around in. We didn't have anything. Ellen had a day job, to be fair to her, but I didn't. So she would sort of work part-time and then come back to my house and we'd just have loads of fun. and we'd watch like stupid TV

or we'd like do obstacle courses in the park and she always had something to keep me entertained we'd cook together we'd just do everything together and it was really really fun and we were both I think Ellen sort of let me lead if I wanted to talk about why we were

where we were and sometimes I did and very often I didn't and that was sort of fine Ellen sort of knew if I needed space which was quite rare and if I needed to laugh, if I needed to cry, if I needed to scream into a pillow, if I needed to put on a sumo suit in the garden, which was what I did. Did you do that? Please tell me you did.

Yeah, we did. The day the phone call came, I saw my parents were really upset, but both of them obviously very bravely trying not to be. And I was really worried about them. And I also felt very awkward for Ellen because she happened to be at my house that day when the phone call came to say you've got this growth in your brain. And so we were all just lumped together in the kitchen. And my fight or flight response was put a sumo suit on and go into the garden and make this really funny.

And it was. And actually, usually if I'd said to my mum, can you go to the loft and get that sumo suit out? She would have been like, no, get it yourself. But when you get told you've got a growth on your brain, people just sort of do things for you. So it happened and it was funny and we were all sort of like hysterically laughing so as to avoid, I suppose, hysterically crying. but it was the same sort of catharsis and that set the precedent for going forward and trying as much as possible to see the ridiculous side of it.

So then you write a show all about it. Yeah. Why not? Yeah, why not? It's what we'd always wanted to do. Ellen and I always said that we'd do comedy together and then she went to university and I went to drama school and across the ocean

and so we didn't really end up doing it and we both then had quite different ambitions. What were hers? Ellen wanted to be, well, and still definitely is, a sort of more political playwright. And she had quite sort of noble ambitions to be a writer who did things that were a bit more hard-hitting and had something to say about sort of the state of the world.

And I wanted to just be a big movie star. And then we both came together and remembered that what we'd always really wanted was to do comedy and make people laugh and just be as, happy as possible and for as many people as possible. And live comedy was something we were both really passionate about and how our friendship sort of really started. So then we remembered that.

And I think that sort of quite naive, nobility thing that happens when you're in your early 20s and you're in an institution with people that don't know you and you're like, how can I be as impressive as possible? I think something tells you that sometimes you're childish, ambitions aren't good enough. And then when you, when something really shakes you, the thing that you find comfort in often is that thing that you loved as a child, which for us was comedy. And we were like, actually, there's nothing ridiculous about this at all. All of my comedy

heroes, I would never think they were ridiculous. I just think they're completely brilliant. And I would really like that to be something that I do. So where's Ellen now? Do you still? We live together and we write together. We'll be doing a run at the Soho Theatre in December, which is really exciting. We love it there. And it was always our sort of big dream to do the Soho Theatre. And this will be our third time doing it,

which is just phenomenal that that's the thing that we can do now. And so yeah, we still do, we write together predominantly, we write sort of TV and film together and we do live comedy together. So gigging as much as we can during the week. Have you two ever fallen out?

Oh yeah, all the time. Oh, do you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We bicker like an old married couple. we've been best friend we've been sort of like interlocked for about 15 years now with the

four and a half year break when I was an American and she was at uni but either side of that small hiatus where we couldn't be completely intertwined we always have been and it's just

I can't so naturally we'd get on each other's nerves a lot but I think it's a bit like, it's the sort of like dream romance really because there's no romance, but we love each other very deeply, but we know that we're never going to break up. That's just not a possibility.

How wonderful. Yeah, every fight that happens is, obviously a fight is never nice, but there's never a moment where I think either of us would ever seriously consider that there wouldn't be a resolution. I think it's just like fighting with a sibling probably. So let's go back, if we may,

to the Lazarus. project. I was obsessed with it. The first, if anybody hasn't seen it, go and watch it now on BBC I Player and it's fantastic news that there's a new season. I cannot wait. So that moment where somebody is, it's not time travel, it's not James Bond, it's not Doctor Who, it's not some great, but it's everything.

Oh my word, the Lazarus Project, congratulations. Thank you so much. Oh, it was such a proper dream job. So exciting to be able to say that. But definitely the sort of thing that I really like to watch and something I didn't really think I would necessarily do. I couldn't imagine that there'd be a character for me in that sort of a show.

And I'm so, so, so glad that there is. So with filming the next season, how's it being back with everybody again? Very exciting because last time we were filming, it was all during lockdown so we were it was a very strange way to do something collaborative because you were so separated

and last time we were filming I only really worked with Papa because all of our scenes were together yeah I mean just the just the coolest guy and this time around it's it's freer and it's open and I get to spend more time with people who aren't Papa even though I love funding time with him it's exciting to spend time

Yeah, don't tell me too much because I actually don't want spoilers It's one of those ones That's why I'm not going to say too much about it Because it's that good But the other thing was The beautiful drama about OCD That was an extraordinary

Extraordinary program It was called Pure Pure, yeah So for people who didn't see it Just explain it a bit Because it's so, it's so beautiful It's harrowing and beautiful Thank you

Pure is a series based on Rose Cartwright's memoir of the same title but the story of the TV show is a very fictionalised account of the condition that she has and it follows the central character Marnie who I played

moving to London from a small town in Scotland and trying to sort of reinvent herself all the while living with this quite debilitating type of OCD known as Pure O which is where you have intrusive thoughts constantly and

quite debilitatingly in some people's cases and Marnie had the sort of pure O where her intrusive thoughts were very sexual and so it's about this young woman trying to sort of figure out how to live with her condition and also live like

as normal and as exciting a life as you can in your early 20s in London and also coming to terms with the fact that mental health is something that needs to be explored and talked about and normalized and not shied away from and somebody that grew up all their life thinking that they were a deviant or a pervert or beating themselves up for the thoughts they had the series really is the journey of realising that you are not your thoughts and how you would I mean how you got the part

is incredible because that was one of those times that you thought, I'm not going to act. Totally. Ellen and I had been doing comedy for two years at this point. I was back in London, well, back in England. I wasn't in London. I was doing sort of odd jobs. I was babysitting occasionally.

I was picking up people's dry cleaning. I was doing whatever I could to sort of like pay some rent in London and then go back to my parents' house. And it was all a bit sad and annoying. and Ellen and I had just done our second Edinburgh show and I didn't have an agent at the time at all and I hadn't done any TV work, anything on screen ever and then we got this email to our like comedy account

saying that somebody had heard about the show and would like me to audition for this thing they needed somebody with a comedy background and I think they were looking for somebody unknown and it worked out and I walked out and I walked out I thought it was a prank at first. I was like, no way. And then I realized it was real and I read the scripts and I thought this is absolutely mad.

But I sort of was like, I can definitely do this. And I had absolutely nothing to lose. So I think I just went in there really like, if nothing else, I get to go to London for the day and audition for Channel 4. This is so exciting. And it was and it was brilliant. And I enjoyed the process so, so much. And then I went back for my callback and they said,

can you do it in a Scottish accent? And I said absolutely. And I sort of panic, learned how to do a Scottish accent. And then I went to New York to do a play for a bit. I say do a play. I'd written a play that my friends very kindly put on in a basement. And it was rat-infested.

You know, it's, you did a play. I'm proud of the work. New York. Exactly, exactly. My grandmother thinks it's Broadway, so it's Broadway. And then. Then while I was there, the casting director said, can you send in more tapes because they really like you? And I couldn't believe it because a few months had passed.

And then while I was there, they called me and said, if you're willing to come back to London, you have the role. And it was insane. It was so, so shocking and so exciting. And I couldn't believe it. And I sort of couldn't talk about it to anybody for such a long time because I didn't really know how on earth to say it. Also because we'd all just got over the fact I'd had a brain tumour. I was like how

how many sort of more big shocks can we all take? But obviously this was a very good one. And then it all happened so quickly. I moved back to London. We started filming three or four days after I moved back and after my 25th birthday. And then

we did 12 weeks of filming and it was just the coolest thing in the world and I was in every day and I absolutely loved it. And And it was just a huge, unbelievable opportunity, which sort of changed my entire life. And wouldn't have happened if we hadn't done that Edinburgh show. So things just sort of have the puzzle looked awful. And actually, when it all fit together, is pretty nice.

Do you now believe that you can do it? I think it was just hubris at the time. I was thinking, well, nobody wants me to do it, so I can't do it. And I think that obviously nobody wants you to do it. They've got no idea what you. you can do. You have to put yourself out there. You've got to make the work and you have to put the time in to do that. And it's so much easier said than done and I was really lucky in that when when Ellen and I did the Edinburgh show, we crowdfunded and all of our profits went to charity. So it was

very easy. It was an easy sell. If it hadn't been for that, would we have been able to afford to do Edinburgh? Probably not. And that led to so many more opportunities. So as easy it is to say make the work, it's very difficult sometimes to find the time or have the resources. But what's changed even the last five years, I think, is the internet and the possibility to showcase yourself that way. And so many people are becoming more and more known and getting all these great opportunities because of things like TikTok and Instagram and Twitter, things that I'm sort of a little bit scared of utilising, I think. Why? I suppose just because my arena feels very live and I don't, the front facing camera thing for me just isn't a big turn on.

I think that will change, definitely. and loads of people I massively admire do it to perfection. I just feel that I've sort of got my thing and I'm really happy in it. But I definitely feel now that I can do it, I am doing it, and I love doing it. I feel so lucky to be doing it. Your parents must feel, you know, from that morning in the sumo suit to now, your parents must just be, what's an extraordinary roller coaster you've gone through. But for them as well, watching all of this happen,

they must just feel so proud. I think so. Brilliantly, they're completely unsurprised. I'm a very, very fortunate person in that my parents, from the second I said I wanted to be an actor, which was when I was about three years old, they were like, brilliant, how and when. And I used to put on plays in my living room

and my mum would help me make the sets, and I charged 20p to my neighbours. And I never thought I couldn't. do it. And they were always incredibly supportive. They were very realistic as well. They never sort of let me audition for anything when I was a kid or they never sort of entertain the idea that they would change anything about their lives to make that happen. But I never, I never thought it wouldn't be able to happen. They were always supportive and they were always very, they were always very glad that I had something I wanted to do and that I was passionate about something without

them ever having to sort of like force my hand. So all of this happening is so brilliant and exciting. And I wouldn't have probably known how to get there if my parents hadn't sort of really encouraged the hard work that would lead to it. I think a lot of people assume it's just sort of like being at the right place at the right time and often it is, but you sort of, you do have to work to get to that place at that time. And there's so many people that everyone goes, oh, they just appeared out of nowhere and they

didn't, they've been there forever, but they, it just sort of takes one thing, but you've got to work very hard to get to a place where that one thing can happen, if that makes sense. It absolutely makes sense, complete sense. So Lazarus project, are you doing more of your own writing though as well? Yeah. Good. Yeah, and that's something I've always been very passionate about. And Ellen and I work together on that.

We have a few things that we're working on for television. Have you got yeses? Yes, we do. We do. Oh, I'm so pleased for you. Thank you. We've got a yes for one thing, which is very exciting. And we are currently pitching a film, which by the time this comes out,

hopefully we will know more about. But that's been a really amazing thing to come out of the BBC airing the Britney pilot is that we have had so many people realize that we can write for screen as well as for stage. And that's been such a blessing, actually particularly during the pandemic, because even though we couldn't act and we couldn't do anything live, and very little filming was going on. Writing was something that we could do without sort of, there's no, you can't be furloughed if you're freelance and it was really worrying.

But thankfully, we got a few jobs during the first awful bit of COVID that have now come to more fruition, which is wonderful. And it's, yeah, I'm, I'm, very glad I write because I don't know what I would do in between the acting jobs otherwise except for potentially go completely mad. Brittany has to be a film though, surely. We've got to make something exciting with it. And I think, yeah, we will be. I don't want to.

No, I'm not pushing for any more. No, no, no, no. I absolutely not, but I saw that smile. What makes you belly laugh? What makes you properly giggle? Ellen. Ellen makes me laugh, belly laugh probably at least once a day. I come from a very funny family.

Everyone in my family is quite gregarious and good storytellers. My dad is one of the funniest people I know. And he brought me up watching sketch comedy. So things that make me really belly laugh. Smack the pony was probably my big, other than French and Saunders, that was probably my biggest inspiration growing up. And all I would do is quote it constantly.

Victoria would. Steve Martin makes me belly laugh. Steve Martin's my all-time hero. And whenever I need to laugh, I will watch clips of Steve Martin or I'll listen to his autobiography. And he's the person that made me desperately want to do

the sort of thing I get to do now. And that is a really lovely feeling. Charlie, you're, you've got such an amazing future. I'm so excited. No, I've got so excited for you. But each time I meet you and interview you, I just think, oh, Charlie Clive, she's one of those. She's just a really good one.

You've got an amazing future. You really have. Thank you. Thank you so much for having me. Thank you. Isn't Charlie Clive lovely? I did tell you. Coming up next week, my gorgeous friend, Ben Shepard.

That Gabby Roslyn podcast is proudly presented to you by Cameo Productions, with music by Beth McCari. If you wouldn't mind, could you give us a like, a follow, a subscribe, and please leave a review. you, we read them all and love to see what you've got to say. See you next week.