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