Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: This is Talk Easy. I'm Sam Fragoso. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Today.
Speaker 2: I'm joined by actor Kate Blanchett. For over twenty five years,
Speaker 2: Blanchett has been as vital as any performer we have.
Speaker 2: Some of my personal favorite performances of hers come in
Speaker 2: projects like Elizabeth, The Talented, Mister Ripley, The Gift, The Aviator, Babbel,
Speaker 2: Carol Manifesto, and Missus America. She was in two films
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, Don't Look Up, an apocalyptic satire
Speaker 2: directed by Adam McKay and Nightmare Alley, which was nominated
Speaker 2: for four Oscars this past week, including Best Picture. Set
Speaker 2: in the late thirties early forties, it tells the story
Speaker 2: of Stanton Carlyle played by Bradley Cooper, an ambitious Carney
Speaker 2: turned renowned psychic. Performing alongside his wife Mollie played by
Speaker 2: Rooney Mara. The clairvoyant couple begins to impress the wealthy
Speaker 2: elite of Buffalo. It's here during a show that Stanton
Speaker 2: meets his match in psychologist doctor Lilith Ritter, who suspects
Speaker 2: he's not the omniscient medium he claims to be. Here's
Speaker 2: an early scene between the two of them from the
Speaker 2: film Nightmare Alley.
Speaker 1: Mister Carlar, come in slow day. If you're not heard,
Speaker 1: we're at war.
Speaker 2: I'm aware.
Speaker 3: How did you know?
Speaker 1: It was me? What friends? You here? You left me
Speaker 1: your card, didn't you? So here? We are? Oh not me?
Speaker 1: I never drink microphones. That's right, fire recorder. You're recording this? No,
Speaker 1: my office is wired to record all analysis sessions.
Speaker 2: You got a smoother line that you run a racket
Speaker 2: same as me.
Speaker 3: Is that what this is?
Speaker 2: That was a scene from the film Nightmare Alley, directed
Speaker 2: by the great Geramel del Toro. Blanchett, of course, is
Speaker 2: excellent in the picture, perfectly cast as a fem fatale
Speaker 2: in del Toro's haunting neo noir. This tends to be
Speaker 2: the case for Blanchett no matter the period or style
Speaker 2: of the film. She has a way of burrowing deep
Speaker 2: inside it. Her conviction is overwhelming, her presence staggering. I
Speaker 2: don't exactly know how she does what she does, and
Speaker 2: quite frankly, I don't think I want to. Back in
Speaker 2: the day when interviewers used to ask John Lennon how
Speaker 2: he makes the music he makes, he'd always have this
Speaker 2: same line. He'd say, every time you try to put
Speaker 2: your finger on it, it slips away. I've always loved that,
Speaker 2: And so what you're about to hear is a different
Speaker 2: kind of conversation than you've probably ever heard with Kate Blanchett.
Speaker 2: We do talk about craft, but what we landed on
Speaker 2: was a larger discussion about identity, truth, imperfection, the necessity
Speaker 2: for risk, and the various inflection points of her life
Speaker 2: that have made her who she is on screen and off.
Speaker 2: So here is the one and only Kate Blanchett. Cate Blanchett.
Speaker 2: Nice to meet you.
Speaker 1: Thanks, Sam, Nice to meet you.
Speaker 2: This is a very strange way to meet someone. You
Speaker 2: are in the UK, I'm in Los Angeles. You're recording
Speaker 2: this at nine o'clock at night. If you want to
Speaker 2: have a drink, I will join you. If you want
Speaker 2: me to have espresso with you. We never keep these
Speaker 2: in the evening, so I'm willing to accommodate whatever you
Speaker 2: want to do.
Speaker 1: What time is it there?
Speaker 2: One o'clock?
Speaker 1: That could be a time, a time for an espresso martini.
Speaker 1: It's like partially breakfast heading into the evening. No, No,
Speaker 1: I'm on peppermint tea and mineral water, which is slightly boring.
Speaker 1: We say, as we both sip our tease medicinal drinks.
Speaker 2: They're completely medicinal and for the voice, so we'll keep.
Speaker 1: It totally for the voice. It's all about the voice.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, Why don't we start with Nightmare Alley, which
Speaker 2: I know historically, as you study scripts, you write down
Speaker 2: everything the character says about herself, as well as everything
Speaker 2: that other people in the script say about your character
Speaker 2: you've said in the past. To this approach, it gives
Speaker 2: you a three dimensional sense of what they are doing.
Speaker 2: How did the character of Lilith reveal itself to.
Speaker 1: You well through the eyes of Giermo del Toro. I mean,
Speaker 1: when you're dealing with someone like that who has such
Speaker 1: a loving, passionate and brutal eye, which is a very
Speaker 1: rare combination. You know, I'm a theater animal, so I
Speaker 1: have a very direct and visceral kind of connection to
Speaker 1: an audience, and you're slightly dislocated from that audience when
Speaker 1: you work in film, So who's looking down the barrel
Speaker 1: at you? It's a really important relationship, not only with
Speaker 1: the DP and the camera operator. It's obviously for because
Speaker 1: that's the reason why we're all there, so it started
Speaker 1: with him. Really, I mean that text work. I think
Speaker 1: it's part of trying to get to the truth of
Speaker 1: the character. Because we're all heroes of our own narrative, right,
Speaker 1: we're all narcissists. But what we say about ourselves, who
Speaker 1: we think we are in the world is often very
Speaker 1: different from how we're perceived to be in that world.
Speaker 1: So somewhere I think there's an intersection between how people
Speaker 1: perceive us, how we perceive ourselves, who we want to
Speaker 1: be perceived. It's the intersection of all those things that
Speaker 1: the character somewhere in that nebula space, the character that
Speaker 1: actually takes flight.
Speaker 2: How did you perceive the character?
Speaker 1: You know? It'd always find that, really it's a thing
Speaker 1: that you're meant to know when you get to this
Speaker 1: other end of what's quote unquote publicizing the movie. My
Speaker 1: daughter's laughing. Sorry, she's on the sofa over that go
Speaker 1: to sleep. It really is the bit that I dread
Speaker 1: because it's a bit where you're meant to tell people
Speaker 1: what the thing that you've all made is about. And
Speaker 1: in the end, I am so not interested in telling
Speaker 1: people what it's about. It's not why I got involved
Speaker 1: in my engagement with the project. It's always about finding out,
Speaker 1: like asking questions, and you never solve it. The audience
Speaker 1: is the last part of that equation, Like they are
Speaker 1: the ones that give it. I mean, I don't want
Speaker 1: to sound too kind of wanky about it, but they
Speaker 1: give it the meaning, the ultimate meaning. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: how do you think? And you know every individual audience
Speaker 1: member will receive it slightly differently if it's a complex
Speaker 1: work like Nightmare Ali is. And then suddenly I meant
Speaker 1: to know who my character is. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: know who you are? Sam? I have no clue who
Speaker 1: I am. I mean, it's not something I wake up
Speaker 1: in the morning. I am. I finally realized who I am?
Speaker 1: I mean, do you know? Can you answer those questions?
Speaker 1: We're just a series of kind of labyrinths and riddles
Speaker 1: and unsolved mysteries, aren't we?
Speaker 2: We absolutely are. And I'm going to make a promise
Speaker 2: to you. That's the last question I think you're not
Speaker 2: going to like on the show.
Speaker 1: No, No, I wasn't. I didn't like it. I didn't
Speaker 1: know how to answer it.
Speaker 2: No, no, because I agree it's a question that is
Speaker 2: asked of people after they've made something and they're putting
Speaker 2: it out into the world. I think the more interesting
Speaker 2: question is that at the core of this film you've said,
Speaker 2: is a story of a man who starts to believe
Speaker 2: his own lies. And I think we are absolutely living
Speaker 2: through a time where people are believing their own lies
Speaker 2: rather than investigating the truth.
Speaker 1: I mean totally. I mean Giermu is known for making
Speaker 1: films about monsters and creatures, and in a way, this
Speaker 1: is an inverted kind of sense of that investigation for him,
Speaker 1: because it's the monster within, the internal monstrousness of being
Speaker 1: a human or trying to be human in the modern world.
Speaker 1: Even though Nightmare ally is set back in time, which
Speaker 1: in a way is a space where you can trojan
Speaker 1: horse all of the concerns about that truth and fallacy
Speaker 1: that you were referring to, that all of us are.
Speaker 1: Anyone who's half awake is alive to that conundrum about
Speaker 1: what do you believe, what do you listen to, what
Speaker 1: do you take in? There's too much noise to even
Speaker 1: know what is an essential truth. I mean, when I
Speaker 1: grew up and I'm older than you, are scientists, people
Speaker 1: who had worked their entire career in the space of fact,
Speaker 1: and there are immutable facts on this planet. But somehow
Speaker 1: those are mutable facts have moved into the space of
Speaker 1: being beliefs. And that is a really strange and elastic
Speaker 1: space that it's doing our head in. And I think
Speaker 1: that that is the space in which Nightmare ally operates.
Speaker 1: Is that the fundamental moral truths that have guided us
Speaker 1: forget religion. It's about the facts that guide our daily existence.
Speaker 1: They've somehow been called into question as being beliefs, and
Speaker 1: it's really confusing.
Speaker 2: This balancing act that's central to the film, between deceit
Speaker 2: and honesty, deception and truth. I don't know. It also
Speaker 2: seems central to how you approach acting, I assume, and
Speaker 2: I think this for you dates back to nineteen seventy eight.
Speaker 2: I want to go to something. When you're nine years old,
Speaker 2: the middle of three kids growing up in Melbourne. For fun,
Speaker 2: your sister would dress you up in costumes, giving you
Speaker 2: a character to play. But then one day you take
Speaker 2: this passion out onto the streets and to the doorsteps
Speaker 2: of strangers' homes.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, have I mentioned this before? Oh shit, totally.
Speaker 1: I would show up on people's doorsteps and I would
Speaker 1: pretend that you know, I'd lost dog. This would be
Speaker 1: our weekend thing, is that we would go and see
Speaker 1: how far we could push this. And one day I
Speaker 1: got invited into these people's homes and I got asked
Speaker 1: to dinner, and it was like five o'clock and I
Speaker 1: knew I was meant to be home and they were.
Speaker 1: In order to get in and to compound the lie,
Speaker 1: I realized I had to be emotionally upset about the
Speaker 1: loss of the dog, so I had to start crying.
Speaker 1: And then they wanted to know my parents' number. My
Speaker 1: father had died, so it was just my mom. And
Speaker 1: I was saying, oh my god, if she knows I'm here,
Speaker 1: and she knows, we don't haven't lost a dog. And
Speaker 1: I was weeping, and these people took me in and
Speaker 1: they fed me, and at a certain point we're all
Speaker 1: sitting around the table, and I was so exhausted by
Speaker 1: the lie that I started to drop it, and I
Speaker 1: became inconsistent, and they knew, and I knew that they knew.
Speaker 1: It's a bit Russian, here's to a be Cold war. That
Speaker 1: we were all that I was lying, and they knew
Speaker 1: I was lying, but we agreed for the sense of
Speaker 1: social convenience. That we were all going to just say
Speaker 1: that this lie has existed, but you can leave the
Speaker 1: house now. And it was just one of those really
Speaker 1: complicated moments for a nine year old to think, I
Speaker 1: don't know about this lion caper. I felt so bad
Speaker 1: and if I was Catholic, I would still be atoning
Speaker 1: for the guilt of that moment, but fortunately I'm not.
Speaker 2: But there's something about it. There's something about that lie
Speaker 2: that compelled you to do it, even at age nine.
Speaker 2: There was something thrilling in that.
Speaker 1: I think it was pushing. It was pushing a boundary.
Speaker 1: I think probably because I'd lost my dad, I was
Speaker 1: attuned to the notion of loss, and so I wanted
Speaker 1: to see if I'd lost a dog. It was a dare.
Speaker 1: Look look, frankly, it's that love as a dare someone
Speaker 1: would dare. It's like Halloween. I mean, my dad was American.
Speaker 1: We were the only people in the suburb in Australia
Speaker 1: that even knew what Halloween was. People would say, slammed
Speaker 1: their doors. It's like, what's this Halloween thing? And there
Speaker 1: was no treat in my suburb. It was all trick
Speaker 1: and so I just I think it probably came out
Speaker 1: of the Halloween thing is that I would go around
Speaker 1: and start opening doors and saying, this has happened, Or
Speaker 1: I said to my history teacher, I fell down the stairs,
Speaker 1: and I'd have my uniform on completely backwards, so everyone
Speaker 1: would know that it was just so ridiculous that I'd
Speaker 1: fallen down the stairs, and why did I suddenly have
Speaker 1: my shirt and my dress and my all my hair
Speaker 1: was backwards. I'd had pigtails coming out, you know, the
Speaker 1: front of my face. And it was seeing how much
Speaker 1: you could get away with before people would realize that
Speaker 1: you were being a buffoon.
Speaker 2: You mentioned your father, who passed away when you were
Speaker 2: ten for context. You know, your father came from Texas
Speaker 2: and he met your mother when his navy ship broke
Speaker 2: down in Melbourne. I think they bonded over a love
Speaker 2: of jazz. And when he passes, did some thing about
Speaker 2: his passing illuminate the preciousness of our time here? Did
Speaker 2: it escalate those desires to want to knock on a
Speaker 2: door and try anything to do something?
Speaker 1: You know? I mean, I have four kids, and each
Speaker 1: of them are so different, and I was not one
Speaker 1: of these girls who grew up thinking I want to
Speaker 1: have children it just sort of happened, and I was
Speaker 1: lucky it happened with someone I love. But the thing
Speaker 1: with kids, everyone will have a different perspective, of course,
Speaker 1: But from my experience and my experience of being a
Speaker 1: child myself, is that they're really resilient. Now one can
Speaker 1: take that for granted and assume that they have processed
Speaker 1: trauma or you know, have moved on. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: I think it was Michelle five years ago said that
Speaker 1: she was going to put a dollar into the jar
Speaker 1: every time she screwed up with her kids to pay
Speaker 1: for their therapy. And of course they will have their issues,
Speaker 1: and there are many fuck ups and missteps that I
Speaker 1: have made as a parent, as most parents will make.
Speaker 1: So therefore I don't think I thought about it at
Speaker 1: the time. It's not until you reach those landmarks of
Speaker 1: turning eighteen twenty one, partnering, having kids, getting your first
Speaker 1: big job. You know that those things where you think
Speaker 1: you suddenly look back over your shoulder and you realize
Speaker 1: that person's not there watching you. But in the end,
Speaker 1: they're watching you from this space, and so the loss
Speaker 1: becomes a very different perspective I think, on where you're
Speaker 1: at and what you've achieved, and the dialogue with that parent,
Speaker 1: even though that parent is absent, doesn't end. It just
Speaker 1: mutates into a different sort of relationship. It's like when
Speaker 1: you know, I remember in our class you would do
Speaker 1: this sense of negative drawing. You would draw the object
Speaker 1: and then you would invert it and you would draw
Speaker 1: the negative space around the object. And in a way,
Speaker 1: the loss of a parent is the negative space around
Speaker 1: the object, around the life, and that is a massive space.
Speaker 1: And so of course, you know, my father died when
Speaker 1: he was forty, and now as an adult, I don't
Speaker 1: think about the loss of a parent so much. I
Speaker 1: think about the tragedy of my mother at thirty nine,
Speaker 1: losing a partner who was forty, and how tragic to
Speaker 1: die at the age of forty. I think about all
Speaker 1: of those losses. I don't think about my loss, you know,
Speaker 1: And so there's an incredible gift that that loss represents.
Speaker 1: I mean, that sounds incredibly narcissistic on one level, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's just the dialogue is just a different dialogue. And
Speaker 1: you find about your at about your parent in retrospect,
Speaker 1: you know, through story, through photographs, and you know, my
Speaker 1: father was kept very much alive by you know, through
Speaker 1: conversations about his childhood. You know, his history, my parents' marriage,
Speaker 1: all of those things which maybe I wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: privy to if he'd been alive.
Speaker 2: You said, you only think about these changes when you're
Speaker 2: looking back at the landmarks of your life. You can
Speaker 2: only sort of process them once something else has happened.
Speaker 2: And I want to go to what I think is
Speaker 2: a landmark in your life, which is in nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 2: you graduate from Australia's National Institute of Dramatic Art.
Speaker 1: God, that was a long time ago, wasn't it?
Speaker 2: Two years before I was born?
Speaker 1: Okay? Stop there, Yeah, okay, you lost me. I was
Speaker 1: almost there and then you said that, so do you
Speaker 1: want to do? Okay whatever? So we ah, what did
Speaker 1: I do? So? I graduated from drama school before you
Speaker 1: were born? All right? Yeah, so let's pick up there.
Speaker 2: I just had to make sure you were listening.
Speaker 1: I was. I'm totally with you. I'm totally with you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so what happened? Then? Tell me? I've forgotten I got
Speaker 1: early on set dementia. So it's really great that we're
Speaker 1: speaking this evening. I kind of remember my name.
Speaker 2: What happens is that before you graduate, you start out
Speaker 2: at the University of Melbourne as an art, history and
Speaker 2: economics major. You leave a couple of years in go
Speaker 2: backpacking penniless in Istanbul and Cairo. Then you come home
Speaker 2: to do this Institute of Dramatic Art when you graduate
Speaker 2: in ninety two. It's important because later that year you
Speaker 2: would perform in David mammitt'z Oleana at the Sydney Theater Company.
Speaker 2: But I think to understand the importance of that performance,
Speaker 2: I'm curious about that job that you took out of
Speaker 2: drama school as a script reader for a casting agent,
Speaker 2: and how that job informed how you understood acting.
Speaker 1: Well, that's an interesting question. Yeah, I didn't think anyone
Speaker 1: knew what to do with me, and look, to be fair,
Speaker 1: I don't think I knew what to do with myself.
Speaker 1: I honestly don't think I ever thought seriously that being
Speaker 1: an actor was a job that one could pursue beyond
Speaker 1: a wonderful hobby, even after going to drama school. And so,
Speaker 1: you know, there were a lot of people who worked
Speaker 1: straight out of drama school. I was not one of
Speaker 1: those people. And so there was a casting agent in Sydney,
Speaker 1: who for some bizarre reason believed in me, and she
Speaker 1: got me to read opposite other people. And so I
Speaker 1: spent the first twelve months at a drama school reading
Speaker 1: for people when they were auditioning. And it was a
Speaker 1: fascinating privilege, actually to watch people at their most nervous,
Speaker 1: at their most exposed, at their most vulnerable, at their
Speaker 1: moment of greatest need as performers, and to see the
Speaker 1: minute they walked in the door what would happen energetically
Speaker 1: between them and the director. And I was totally irrelevant
Speaker 1: and invisible in that process, and so as I was
Speaker 1: a real fly on the wall, and I learned incredible amount,
Speaker 1: not only on a banal level about auditioning, but just
Speaker 1: about human beings, just watching the interaction, the power dynamics
Speaker 1: that would happen in that room, about the status and
Speaker 1: the giving over and the ebb and flow of it all.
Speaker 1: And it was really, really fascinating. And so I was
Speaker 1: then auditioning for a feature film at the end of
Speaker 1: that year. I wasn't sure that I was right for
Speaker 1: the role. I know that sounds really stupid and really arrogant, when,
Speaker 1: of course, you know I could barely pay my rent
Speaker 1: at that point, so any job, frankly would have been
Speaker 1: a godsend. I just thought, I don't know that I
Speaker 1: am right, and so I sat back, having watched people
Speaker 1: lose a job in a way when they came in
Speaker 1: wanting it too much. But I sincerely thought, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I'm right for this fallen. And of course
Speaker 1: I got it, not because I was right, but maybe
Speaker 1: because I was ambivalent. It's that strange ambivalent space that
Speaker 1: I think we occupy a lot of the time. It says,
Speaker 1: moments between we identify that there's a series of choices
Speaker 1: I could make right now, which one am I going
Speaker 1: to make. It's that liminal space that I think that
Speaker 1: a lot of really interesting acting decisions get.
Speaker 2: Made instead of watching people audition. At some point I
Speaker 2: realized this is an act. It's not whether you can
Speaker 2: act or not, it's whether you can act comfortable and relaxed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a really complicated thing. I think you have
Speaker 1: to allow yourself to be seen. And some people have
Speaker 1: the gift of being able to be comfortable with that
Speaker 1: really early on, and I was not, And so I
Speaker 1: was really grateful in a way that I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time in the theater where I developed a
Speaker 1: sense of audience. I look at these people who are
Speaker 1: sixteen seven team like Cooper Hoffmann, I mean amazing. I
Speaker 1: mean it's just amazing the way he allows himself to
Speaker 1: be seen. You know, I could never have done that
Speaker 1: at his age.
Speaker 2: You weren't comfortable with that.
Speaker 1: Oh God, no, I wouldn't have known even how to begin.
Speaker 1: You know. I still struggle with it. It's why I
Speaker 1: always have to think, oh, I've got to stop now.
Speaker 1: I've had my portrait painted a couple of times, and
Speaker 1: it's interesting because when you see, you know, you develop
Speaker 1: a relationship with the artists, and they approach you and
Speaker 1: they paint me looking away from their gaze. And I
Speaker 1: think when that happens once, you go, oh what happens twice?
Speaker 1: When it happens three times, you think, why am I?
Speaker 1: Why am I looking away? You know? And I think
Speaker 1: it's it's that thing about not wanting to be captured,
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm in life, acting as part of it,
Speaker 1: but I'm actually engaged with the zone wanky. But it's
Speaker 1: like the art of living. Sometimes that's been shod but
Speaker 1: sometimes it's just you know, going for a walk, or
Speaker 1: encountering people at the market or I do think that's
Speaker 1: being self conscious. It's the enemy of quote unquote art.
Speaker 1: Then you're talking about something that's aware of itself, if
Speaker 1: you're trying to deal directly with an audience, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, sometimes there's a nod or a
Speaker 1: wink in the direction of the camera, but in the end,
Speaker 1: you want something to be direct, and self consciousness gets
Speaker 1: in the way of that. I think that's my issue
Speaker 1: with social media. There's an understood filter that we have
Speaker 1: kind of now absorbed and ceased to see.
Speaker 2: I notice in looking at photographs of myself, I often
Speaker 2: do the same thing. I've turned away or some of
Speaker 2: my faces obfuscated, and I've often thought, what on earth
Speaker 2: is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's Susan Santeig would talk about non photography.
Speaker 1: She talks about all of that language around photography. It's
Speaker 1: the same language around gun culture. You shoot, you point,
Speaker 1: you aim, you capture. We don't talk about it anymore, really,
Speaker 1: because photography is so much and the way we visually
Speaker 1: received information, and of course it's really super super important
Speaker 1: and super valuable, and I'm not trying to diminish it,
Speaker 1: but we do have to be aware of it. There
Speaker 1: is a kind of a cost if you're trying to also,
Speaker 1: at times in your life be invisible, so you can
Speaker 1: be inside life, not skirting on the surface of it.
Speaker 2: In those early films Oscar and the Senda, Elizabeth counted,
Speaker 2: mister Ripley, I don't sense any self consciousness on screen.
Speaker 2: And there's one film directed by Sam Raimie called The
Speaker 2: Gift that I think has some kinship with Nightmare Alley.
Speaker 2: In The Gift, you play a fortune teller, and of course,
Speaker 2: in Kiermo de Toro's new film, the fortune teller role
Speaker 2: is integral to the fate of Bradley Cooper's character. And
Speaker 2: yet it it seems you two had your course predicted
Speaker 2: upon visiting a retired psychic.
Speaker 1: Oh. I talked about that when I was doing The
Speaker 1: Gift and was one of my favorite experiences. Sam Raimi
Speaker 1: is one of the He's a genius. I mean, he
Speaker 1: invents shots, and so it was such a privilege to
Speaker 1: work with him. And it was all made in the
Speaker 1: wing in a prayer. We had no money at all,
Speaker 1: and I played a psychic whose husband had died and
Speaker 1: she was being haunted by this woman who had been killed,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of a murder mystery. I'd never been
Speaker 1: to a psychic, and so I went to the ones
Speaker 1: in La and the obviously just read the trades. And
Speaker 1: then when I got to Savannah where we shot it,
Speaker 1: I met this woman who was a quote unquote real
Speaker 1: estate agent. She said, look, I don't do this anymore
Speaker 1: because it's too dangerous. She used to when obviously, when
Speaker 1: the FBI can't solve certain crimes, they would often get
Speaker 1: psychics in to help them find bodies. And so she
Speaker 1: seen and discovered a lot of really unpalatable things. And
Speaker 1: so I said to her, look, would you give me
Speaker 1: a reading. I've never had one before, and your accent's amazing,
Speaker 1: and you know, I've got a memory like a sieve,
Speaker 1: so I'll record it and the recording device wouldn't work
Speaker 1: around her. But of course, as soon as she left,
Speaker 1: the recording device worked, and she made all these predictions,
Speaker 1: which I only recorded because I was interested in the process.
Speaker 1: And then we were moving house about five or six
Speaker 1: years later, and so I listened to the recording and
Speaker 1: everything she said happened.
Speaker 2: What did she say?
Speaker 1: She said, I would have four children. I was like,
Speaker 1: are you crazy? And there would be two born in
Speaker 1: one place, one in another, and one would come to
Speaker 1: me in a really unusual way. So we have three
Speaker 1: biological kids, one adopted child, two born in England. And
Speaker 1: it was all kind of crazy. And she said that
Speaker 1: I would play a writer who was ahead of her time,
Speaker 1: who had a foreign sound in the Guavin Gueven short hair,
Speaker 1: and she was killed for what she was writing. And
Speaker 1: I found myself on set three years later, covered in
Speaker 1: blood because I'd just been shot, playing the Irish writer
Speaker 1: Veronica Gharrin, who was killed for what she was writing
Speaker 1: about the drug lords in Ireland at the time. And
Speaker 1: she also said I had two bodyguards and I was
Speaker 1: like au bonkers, and because the case had been reopened,
Speaker 1: I was assigned a bodyguard because the guys who had
Speaker 1: got out of jail were visiting the set. Ireland is
Speaker 1: a very small country. And I was covered in blood
Speaker 1: short hair coming from the scene where I'd just been shot,
Speaker 1: and I turned behind me and there were two bodyguards
Speaker 1: following me, and it was just one of those moments
Speaker 1: where you go hang on a minute and then it
Speaker 1: was all came back to me. So it wasn't like
Speaker 1: I'd predicted it I'd only done that stuff as research,
Speaker 1: so that was a very range strange moment.
Speaker 2: Her prediction came true.
Speaker 1: It did, and so I had this urge. It's like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I've got to go back and find her.
Speaker 1: And then you think do I want to know or
Speaker 1: do I not want to know? So obviously I didn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to know.
Speaker 2: It's a little bit terrifying, isn't it. The prospect of
Speaker 2: going back.
Speaker 1: Well, it's humbling, but it's also what would it achieve
Speaker 1: because I encountered her in absolute innocence, I'd be going
Speaker 1: back with a need that you know that might pervert
Speaker 1: you know, this is the whole thing that Gamo's film
Speaker 1: deals with. Is that? What's the truth? The thing I
Speaker 1: asked her, which is really interesting, I said, what's the
Speaker 1: hardest thing about having this gift, this gift of having
Speaker 1: this sign apse open where you can you get a
Speaker 1: really strong feeling about something and sometimes you're right and
Speaker 1: sometimes you're not. And she said, the hardest thing is
Speaker 1: saying it. And we find that in any relationship, is
Speaker 1: that when you perceive something about a loved one and
Speaker 1: you think do I say it or do I not
Speaker 1: say it? You know that often happens in families, doesn't it.
Speaker 1: Where there's an understood truth that you think, we know
Speaker 1: what this is, but we're not going to articulate it.
Speaker 1: But you need to know what it is. Once you've
Speaker 1: uncovered the truth, you need to have a relationship to
Speaker 1: it in some form.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back after a quick break.
Speaker 2: I have a question about your family because you mentioned
Speaker 2: that film Veronica Garran, and while you are making it,
Speaker 2: you have this quote you said that after Dashel, your
Speaker 2: first child's born, I have nothing to give this project
Speaker 2: because I'm so filled up with this creature we've created.
Speaker 2: But I've become a better actor because of it. I
Speaker 2: think parenthood is knowing what cards you've got and then
Speaker 2: throwing them up in the air. I've never heard that
Speaker 2: description before.
Speaker 1: I think when you have a profound life experience, and
Speaker 1: for some people that's having children, for some it's walking
Speaker 1: up a mountain or having a great creative experience. But
Speaker 1: it changes you. And so I think you have to
Speaker 1: ask yourself each time you think you know. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of things that you encounter where you go, oh,
Speaker 1: I wish I could do that, and you think, now
Speaker 1: it's not the time, you know, because I'm doing this
Speaker 1: and if I do that and that, I won't serve
Speaker 1: either of those things. Well, so you have to let
Speaker 1: those things go. In those moments, you have to confront
Speaker 1: your own mortality and think, well, I don't have anything
Speaker 1: to give that. But you know, in that instance, he
Speaker 1: was very very young when I did for a kick,
Speaker 1: and I was, you know, first child. I had no
Speaker 1: idea if I would even want to or could, or
Speaker 1: what acting even meant. But maybe that was a good
Speaker 1: space to work in because if you think you know
Speaker 1: too much or oops.
Speaker 2: I like how you're the first person to ever have
Speaker 2: to quiet their child while we're taping.
Speaker 1: There's so many time zones that when you know, I'm Australian,
Speaker 1: so I'm dealing with Australia, which is in our morning
Speaker 1: here in the UK, and then there's our life here
Speaker 1: and then La wakes up, and then you've got this
Speaker 1: whole other life and meanwhile your children are on a
Speaker 1: regular UK cycle.
Speaker 2: And so and by the way, I take no offense
Speaker 2: that the kids don't care about talk easy. I actually
Speaker 2: find this entirely endearing.
Speaker 1: No, they care deeply, they want to hear it. But
Speaker 1: the problem is they can only hear me. They can't
Speaker 1: hear you, so they're only in the boring end that
Speaker 1: they hear every day. Huh, they're not getting you, Sam,
Speaker 1: which is the exotic end of the day.
Speaker 2: I'm the exotic part.
Speaker 1: You are the exotic part of their day.
Speaker 2: Now I know you're a good actor. I wasn't sure before.
Speaker 1: It's true. It's true they just get the orange headphones,
Speaker 1: you know, the mother they always get.
Speaker 2: But it's true. You have four children, and you've said
Speaker 2: having children it forces you to be economical, to choose
Speaker 2: your rules wisely, and then shrug them off as soon
Speaker 2: as you're done. And since we don't have all the
Speaker 2: time in the world, I want to ask you about
Speaker 2: two films here where they land with you now and
Speaker 2: how you shrugged them off when you were done. To start,
Speaker 2: I think we should talk about I'm not there.
Speaker 1: I had made a film in Morocco and my son
Speaker 1: had an accident. It was the closest that I've ever
Speaker 1: come to a nervous breakdown. I think. I was so distressed.
Speaker 1: I said to my a and dear friend, I said,
Speaker 1: I can't do this, I can't work, and she said,
Speaker 1: don't worry. We'll make it fine. It can all happen.
Speaker 1: So I came to that job kind of very overexposed,
Speaker 1: I think. But if you're going to be overexposed with anyone,
Speaker 1: it's with Todd. I've had the great fortune of working
Speaker 1: with him a couple of times, and I would do
Speaker 1: it a couple of times more because apart from Guiamo,
Speaker 1: there's not a more loving environment in which one can work.
Speaker 1: And it's all about the investigation. I had to lose
Speaker 1: a lot of weight to play Bob Dylan, so I
Speaker 1: became increasingly seen, you know, and I would get obsessed
Speaker 1: with these the art takes from the Penny Baker documentary
Speaker 1: that his agent had given us, which was fascinating, and
Speaker 1: watching his connection to the media, I became really obsessed
Speaker 1: with and it was a life raft. So it was
Speaker 1: this strange space that I entered the shoot ab I'm
Speaker 1: not there. That was a very kind of maternal space.
Speaker 1: But yet I was playing Bob Dylan, and so I
Speaker 1: had this total fan girl response to him. But yet
Speaker 1: I was a woman playing him. And a friend of mine,
Speaker 1: who was doing hair and makeup, said to me, you
Speaker 1: know what, I think, it's great what you're doing but
Speaker 1: you need to put a sock down your pants. I
Speaker 1: think that's what's missing. I mean, what and she'd trust me?
Speaker 1: Just put a sock down your pants. I think it
Speaker 1: will change the way you move. And because I hadn't
Speaker 1: hadn't thought about him as being male or female. But
Speaker 1: putting this sock in my pants, it was like everything
Speaker 1: came alive for me. I know that sounds absolutely ridiculous
Speaker 1: and totally shallow, but it did change the way I moved,
Speaker 1: and it made that strange intersection between me as a
Speaker 1: email body, him as a kind of a male but
Speaker 1: androgynous entity, and the fact that I was a woman
Speaker 1: playing man. It just kind of all came together around
Speaker 1: that sock in the pants. I don't believe I'm saying this.
Speaker 1: It's like it should be a much more intellectual, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of connection. But I've done all of that stuff,
Speaker 1: and sometimes something as kind of obvious as that is
Speaker 1: the key.
Speaker 2: No, what do you think I did right before this podcast?
Speaker 1: You put a Solke Dandy pants. You have a Soke
Speaker 1: danw pants. That's your business and it's none of my business.
Speaker 2: I'm going to say on record that is one of
Speaker 2: the dumbest jokes I've ever made.
Speaker 1: Well, look, that's one of the most shallow observations I've
Speaker 1: ever made about any character. And look, it's of course
Speaker 1: it's always more complicated than that. But you know, sometimes
Speaker 1: the moments of pivot that one makes with a project,
Speaker 1: with an idea, whatever it is that one's working on
Speaker 1: is really physical or simple, or it's like just open
Speaker 1: that door and you go, oh, okay, and it's only
Speaker 1: because you've done all the other stuff that that door
Speaker 1: becomes available to you.
Speaker 2: By the way, I said the joke mainly because I
Speaker 2: knew you would enjoy it, even though it's profoundly dumb.
Speaker 1: Yes I did, I did. It's not profoundly dumb.
Speaker 2: One of the things you said about Dylan, you said,
Speaker 2: I think the way to be ultimately liberated and free
Speaker 2: as an artist, which Dylan absolutely inhabits, is to constantly
Speaker 2: escape the physical definition. If you look at his various incarnations,
Speaker 2: I mean, it's quite schizophrenic. And I was thinking about
Speaker 2: these various incarnations of your career. They almost seem to
Speaker 2: culminate in the film Manifesto.
Speaker 1: Oh you saw that here. A friend of mine, Julian Roseveldt,
Speaker 1: he we were talking about working together, and he came
Speaker 1: up with this idea of doing a piece around artists
Speaker 1: manifestos and you know, the kind of the assertion of
Speaker 1: individuality and the different way they expressed themselves. And perhaps
Speaker 1: a good way of fully representing that would be to
Speaker 1: find both meaningful and banal settings in which to express
Speaker 1: these manifestos, sometimes as in a monologue, sometimes as text.
Speaker 1: And what if we found various manifestos and assigned a character,
Speaker 1: but not in the sense of a characterist one understands
Speaker 1: it narrative, you know, an archetype. And so I found
Speaker 1: that really really fascinating. It was like stand up comedy
Speaker 1: is there was no time for thought. Obviously, there was
Speaker 1: no money for the project at all, and so we
Speaker 1: had to think on our feet, and literally the night
Speaker 1: before was like, okay, what if I talked like that?
Speaker 1: And all right, well now I'm going to talk like this,
Speaker 1: And you know, it was literally trying to find something
Speaker 1: that would be appropriate the day of or the day before.
Speaker 1: It made me think about how random and immediate our
Speaker 1: sense of identity is, and how malleable our sense of
Speaker 1: identity is, and how surface our sense of identity is,
Speaker 1: and the amazing thing about reading all of these manifestos
Speaker 1: is artists manifestos, is that their massive assertions about the
Speaker 1: separation of one's artistic identity from the previous incarnation of
Speaker 1: all these people's artistic identity. But yet when you hear
Speaker 1: them energetically, when you hear them together, because there was
Speaker 1: a point when all the manifestos were heard together sort
Speaker 1: of in a tone poem, they all sound the same.
Speaker 1: We all think about how unique and individual and special
Speaker 1: we are. But it was a really profound moment for me,
Speaker 1: and maybe an audience wouldn't receive it in the same way,
Speaker 1: but I felt just how connected all of these departures were.
Speaker 1: I found that there was a strange sort of comforting
Speaker 1: moment in that dissonance.
Speaker 2: To get into all those parts. You just say something
Speaker 2: I love, which is that there was no time for thought.
Speaker 2: There's something very Eastern philosophy in that.
Speaker 1: With self preservation. Sam is one of us. It was like,
Speaker 1: we got to do this. But also, you know, the
Speaker 1: most wonderful times I've had with the Bob Dylan project.
Speaker 1: You were mentioning with manifesto. You think no one's going
Speaker 1: to see this, and it gets a bit harder, you know,
Speaker 1: when you're dealing with a Marvel movie to say, no
Speaker 1: one's going to see this, but you have to claim
Speaker 1: that space. In a way, you're saying, it doesn't matter
Speaker 1: if people see this, and that doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: have disregard for the audience, because in the end, that's
Speaker 1: absolutely why you're doing it, not that you want audience's approval,
Speaker 1: but you want the chance to connect with someone for
Speaker 1: them to like it or dislike it. And sometimes it's
Speaker 1: those gray areas that you know between thumbs up thumbs down,
Speaker 1: that most of the films, most of the endeavors sit
Speaker 1: because they're not going to ever be thumbs up thumbs down.
Speaker 2: By the way, I mentioned this Eastern philosophy about having
Speaker 2: no time to think, because you've often talked about how
Speaker 2: your work is rooted in the Eastern philosophy of imperfection.
Speaker 2: That something can only truly be perfect only if there's
Speaker 2: imperfection in it.
Speaker 1: That's my justification for me who I am. That's what
Speaker 1: I said to my children. I said, Look, there's no
Speaker 1: such thing as a perfect parent, as I'm failing them monumentally.
Speaker 1: It's the imperfections that make you who you are are.
Speaker 1: I say to my children. No, yeah, well, I mean
Speaker 1: something is only beautiful. It's like this idea of homogeneous beauty,
Speaker 1: you know, is that we're all striving to get rid
Speaker 1: of all the imperfect parts of ourselves. But when you
Speaker 1: remove them, you know, you remove that individuality, You remove
Speaker 1: that I mean, who are we without all of that history?
Speaker 1: You know, there's an amazing moment where as one ages is
Speaker 1: that there's an asymmetry that happens when we're in the womb,
Speaker 1: and that we're all slightly asymmetrical. And as we age,
Speaker 1: our face, our bodies, you know, become and probably our
Speaker 1: personalities therefore become increasingly asymmetrical. As that becomes evident, we
Speaker 1: try and revert to a sense of symmetry. But then
Speaker 1: what you're trying to do is you're trying to reverse
Speaker 1: the aging process in a really profound way that makes
Speaker 1: us who we are. And it took me a while
Speaker 1: to receive it as a compliment that someone said to me,
Speaker 1: is that I've got an actor's face, which probably meant
Speaker 1: that I wasn't particularly attractive, you know, but that sense
Speaker 1: is that you have a quote unquote good side of
Speaker 1: your face and a not so good side of your face.
Speaker 1: But if you allow that asymmetry to exist, you've got
Speaker 1: so many more doors to play, so many more people.
Speaker 1: Because if you start to remove that asymmetry.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, do you remove some of the complexity.
Speaker 2: Of course. And I'm reluctant to compliment you because I
Speaker 2: don't think you do so well with compliments?
Speaker 1: Who does? But do you do well with compliments? What
Speaker 1: do you do with compliments?
Speaker 2: Well, you haven't tried.
Speaker 1: You've got great hair, sam, lovely eyebrows. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I have two questions. And talking about aging as a performer.
Speaker 2: In twenty nineteen, you say with Julia Roberts for an interview,
Speaker 2: you said, as you get older, acting just gets more
Speaker 2: and more humiliating. When I was young, was that an okay?
Speaker 1: Line? Reading it's worse, It's only worse? When was that?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: You know what, I can't even say a nice thing
Speaker 2: about you because you won't even hear it.
Speaker 1: So I'm not even okay, No, was that nice? Okay,
Speaker 1: let's go, will you talk humiliation? I'm listening?
Speaker 2: Well, okay. So when I was younger, I would wonder
Speaker 2: why the older actors I admired kept talking about quitting.
Speaker 2: Now I realize it's because they want to maintain a
Speaker 2: connection to the last shreds of their sanity. It's the
Speaker 2: king lear end of the spectrum of what we do right.
Speaker 2: So I'm on the proverbial couch thinking do I want
Speaker 2: to go that direction or do I actually want to
Speaker 2: live a life? And I think about that now as
Speaker 2: we sit, where are you on that spectrum?
Speaker 1: I still I mean that was only twenty nineteen. I
Speaker 1: still haven't worked out the answer. But having lost a
Speaker 1: parent at such a young age, I realized how short
Speaker 1: life was and how many lives I wanted to lead,
Speaker 1: and that the privilege I've had as being an actor
Speaker 1: is that I've empathetically been able to enter not only
Speaker 1: time zones, but actually to a lot of different psyches,
Speaker 1: and so therefore I've got to experience the point of view,
Speaker 1: the outlooks, and the experiences of people beyond my own.
Speaker 1: And so the literalism that I see creeping into that
Speaker 1: one can only play things inside one's experience I find
Speaker 1: really sad. I find it really limiting. You do get
Speaker 1: to a point where you think, well, do I have
Speaker 1: anything more to offer? You do have to stop periodically
Speaker 1: and say I actually need to go actually go back
Speaker 1: into the world and have some experiences that are not
Speaker 1: research for the next role but as simply just on
Speaker 1: your You know, you're in the world to explore, to
Speaker 1: see what the questions are. And unless you have that
Speaker 1: space as an artist, which means stepping off the treadmill
Speaker 1: of one's so called career trajectory, and you know, when
Speaker 1: you get representation and there's a certain career path that
Speaker 1: one is meant to be on, you know you can
Speaker 1: feel like, oh God, what if I it's that fear
Speaker 1: of not getting that or the bravest thing you can
Speaker 1: do is step sideways, and so I'm constantly wanting to
Speaker 1: step sideways.
Speaker 2: Do you think one of the reasons you have trouble
Speaker 2: stepping sideways is because of that Martha Graham philosophy that
Speaker 2: I know you subscribe to. As you said, no artist
Speaker 2: is pleased. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a
Speaker 2: blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more
Speaker 2: alive than the others.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can have that feeling, whether you're a quote
Speaker 1: unquote artist or not. I think that's part of being human.
Speaker 1: I think it's part of being alive, and that is
Speaker 1: far more important to me than being an actor. Any
Speaker 1: panic I feel is when I feel that there's too much,
Speaker 1: you know, and there's the whole thing that has developed
Speaker 1: with streaming algorithms that need to be fed, is that
Speaker 1: somehow we are content providers, and that makes me want
Speaker 1: to throw up. The last thing I want to do
Speaker 1: is to be someone who is filling space that has
Speaker 1: been created. Don't say something unless you have something to say,
Speaker 1: and if you haven't got something to say, give that
Speaker 1: to someone else.
Speaker 2: I think you've had many things to say on this show,
Speaker 2: and since the beginning, you've had this interaction with your daughter,
Speaker 2: trying to get her to fall asleep.
Speaker 1: She's actually a sleep, She's actually sleep you Sam, thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you. You have sinned to sleep.
Speaker 2: You know. You know I don't say that too loud.
Speaker 1: She sound asleep, Thank God. So if can I speak
Speaker 1: to you tomorrow night? At the same time, this is
Speaker 1: clearly working, you know what.
Speaker 2: I think this has been a riveting conversation. I want
Speaker 2: to put something on record before we leave. You said
Speaker 2: earlier your kids may listen to this, although they can
Speaker 2: only hear your end of it. After the last two years,
Speaker 2: after this whirlwind, of year you've had with these two films,
Speaker 2: with four kids at fifty two, I don't know, what
Speaker 2: do you want them to know about who you are today,
Speaker 2: about what matters to you right now?
Speaker 1: Gosh, you know, it's a hard thing to say with
Speaker 1: the spread of children between twenty and seven, because their
Speaker 1: interest in you as a parent, what they want from
Speaker 1: you as an individual and as a parent figure is
Speaker 1: so very, very different. You know, my seven year old
Speaker 1: daughter hates it when I do voices. When I read,
Speaker 1: it's like, but that's what I do. Don't you want
Speaker 1: me to give my Christmas pig? Yeah? Yeah, So she
Speaker 1: hates that. But in the end, it's the really simple
Speaker 1: things when you're living with people day today, it's the
Speaker 1: simple thing. It's like, dude, recycle, there's recycling bin. You
Speaker 1: know what if you recycle and separate our garbage. That,
Speaker 1: on a banal domestic level is where I'm at because
Speaker 1: it's about mindfulness. Forget the yoga, forget the meditation. Just
Speaker 1: have a sets that you take the time to know
Speaker 1: how much waste you're producing and how conscious you are
Speaker 1: of that. So that is I suppose first base, and
Speaker 1: we're trying to get there, but that is probably not
Speaker 1: the answer you were looking for. You were wanting to
Speaker 1: know what they thought of me as a They couldn't
Speaker 1: be Can I tell you they could not be less
Speaker 1: interested in what I do for a living, you know,
Speaker 1: because they're individuals and you know they don't want to
Speaker 1: be They don't want to be in the world in
Speaker 1: relation to me.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: No, I want to assure you something, which is that
Speaker 2: I want no answer that's not truthful to you. That's
Speaker 2: I don't presume to want anything like that. My last thing,
Speaker 2: since we have to go that Graham quote about divine dissatisfaction,
Speaker 2: are you comfortable with being dissatisfied in that way for
Speaker 2: the rest of your career?
Speaker 1: I think it's part of the job description.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: That was a big thing about nightmare allity, about the
Speaker 1: monstrous moment when we feel satisfied with ourselves and we
Speaker 1: believe our own lives. Now, that doesn't mean that you
Speaker 1: can't reach a milestone and go I did that, which
Speaker 1: is very important to I think American culture. I achieved that,
Speaker 1: I did that. I overcame that obstacore. But it's very
Speaker 1: different when you start to say I am that solidity
Speaker 1: I think is a dangerous place for the creative mind
Speaker 1: to exist. It's about flow, it's about change, it's about challenge,
Speaker 1: and that's often a very uncomfortable place to be. And
Speaker 1: I suppose I'm just getting more and more used to
Speaker 1: being that uncomfortable, you know, And that's okay.
Speaker 2: Well, I have to say, as someone who's been watching
Speaker 2: your work.
Speaker 1: My entire life, I apologize.
Speaker 2: Thank you. I've been waiting for you too, honestly, you know,
Speaker 2: I know you're not going to take this well. I
Speaker 2: just want to say thank you for embracing that discomfort
Speaker 2: and the imperfections of the people you've played. They have
Speaker 2: made all of us who've watched, I think a little
Speaker 2: more attuned to their own imperfection and in turn our
Speaker 2: own humanity.
Speaker 1: Well that's a very big compliment. Thank you.
Speaker 2: Thanks so Kate Blanchett, lovely to meet you.
Speaker 1: Thank you again, thank you, thanks to your patience.
Speaker 2: Anytime, Thank you so long. And that's our show. I
Speaker 2: want to give a special thanks this week to Graham Morphy, Dominic, Boucherry,
Speaker 2: Searchlight Pictures, and of course, Kate Blanchet. If you'd like
Speaker 2: to learn more about Kate and her work, be sure
Speaker 2: to visit our website at talk easypod dot com. Once
Speaker 2: you're there, you'll find our back catalog of over two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty episodes with actors including Laura Dern, Matthew McConaughey,
Speaker 2: Uzo Aduba Holland Taylor, Tessa Thompson, Tracy Letts, Alana Hiam
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Speaker 2: As always, this show would not be possible without our
Speaker 2: incredible team. Talk Easy is produced by Caroline Reebok. Our
Speaker 2: executive producer is Janick Sabravo. Our associate producer is Caitlin Dryden.
Speaker 2: Today's Talk was edited by Clarice Goevara and mixed by
Speaker 2: Andrew Vastola. Music by Dylan Peck, illustrations by Criscia Chenoy,
Speaker 2: Video and graphics by Ian Chang, Derek Gaberzac, Ian Jones,
Speaker 2: Ethan Seneca and Layla Register. Special thanks to Patrice Lee,
Speaker 2: Kaelin Ung, Shiloh Fagan, Nicky Spina, and Callie Serringis. I'd
Speaker 2: also like to thank the team at Pushkin Industries, Justin Richmond,
Speaker 2: Julia Barton, John Schnars, Kerrie Brody, Eric Sandler, Kira Posy,
Speaker 2: Jorna McMillan, Tera Machado, Justin Lang, Sarah Nix, Malcolm Gladwell,
Speaker 2: Gretacon and Jacob Weisberg. I'm San Fragoso. Thank you for
Speaker 2: listening to Talk Easy. I'll see you back here next
Speaker 2: week with another episode. Until then, stay safe and so on.