I Weigh - Minnie Driver

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Hello, welcome to Iway. How are you? I'm alright. I love that I'm the love of your life. That's great. I wake up with friends. James knows that you are the benchmark that he has always been trying to live up to. He resents you massively. You should never be in the same room because he will find you. He never doesn't care that you're all I'm fighting. I love to fight him. You're both really tall. I think it could actually be quite a good fight. How have you been? I've been alright. I mean, dealing with the, really feels like still dealing with the fallout of COVID, really weirdly. Not the disease itself, but the long reaching effect of it in the people around me that I love in myself, it feels like it hammered that isolation hammered so many people that I love. Right. So yeah, but other than that, you know, all right, trying to be as present as possible, dealing with my newer liners, which are making me less. So, apologies for that, everyone. That's alright. It's funny because over the course of the pandemic, I started this podcast that like sort of weak one of lockdown or something, weak two of lockdown. And we went through a period of people wanting to talk about it and then by about 2022, people were like, no one wants to hear about the pandemic anymore. Everyone wants to move on from it. But now what I'm finding is that we get to 2024 and people feel not ghastlet, but almost a bit like the lack of ability to talk about it and ask kind of moving on from it as staunchly as we have almost as if it never happened, is making then some people feel like they should blame themselves for whatever hangover they've still got because we're not talking about the fact that by 2022, we could not possibly have processed what had happened because it was very much still happening. So it's only now that the impact is starting to like really hit us and we're not talking about it. And then all these TikToks are just about like putting up more and more boundaries or doing this or doing that. And there's like a lot of pathologizing happening, but no one really talking about the sort of collective grief or collective. I mean, for some people it really was incredibly traumatic. I wasn't isolated because I live in a house with all my flatmates, but for some people that was really fucking dramatic. And they lost friends. I think it's a lot more. I know. But I think it's also like it's seeing the kids. That's what has been most alarming is like these children that were metabolizing. What do we used to call it? The low hum of menace that was ever present, whether you were listening to the news or not. The that there was this feeling of threat, which I see now that having taken root and manifesting in in a lot of the kids that I know and coming out in lots of different ways. Like what anxiety. To depression, to behavioral discrepancies. I mean, not things that were in alignment with these kids that I've known since since birth. And I think we're just seeing it now. And that idea that there isn't going to be a future harvest of that kind of anxiety at a moment when 11, 12-year-olds were were really, really in a moment of development. To start seeing that now that their teenagers in their cauldron of hormones. That it's almost like the the the trigger of all of that chemistry has now brought up this this previous trauma. I've been astonished. I really have been astonished watching that unfold and trying to really be as available as I can like to other parents that talking about it and feeling like it's not just typical teenage angst. It's exacerbated by what I think was laid in at this incredibly tender moment of their development. Yeah, I think it's really important for you to bring up. I think a lot of parents probably feel quite reassured in knowing that they're not the only ones. I also think given that there is this like incredibly important boom of us talking about neurodivergence. The tricky thing with neurodivergence, especially things like ADHD, which can manifest in attention span deficit or all types of autism, is that those things, the symptoms of which can sometimes be very similar to those of PTSD, you know, or developmental hindrances. So I'm seeing a lot of my friends unsure us to whether or not their child is struggling with neurodivergence, which is a pathology or if their child has been on screens doing school on screen, being on screen all of the time for these formative years and their neurological development. And maybe that's manifesting as a kind of dopamine, you know, loop that they're on, which is causing ADHD type symptoms. Is it autism or are they have they missed vital social cues because they couldn't see each other's faces? Are they missing? Do you know what I mean? And so this is not me trying to be, you know, I'm not Dr. Jamil, but I am saying that I'm noticing this kind of, and I think it's so important that we get that diagnosis correct if it's there because I can really change someone's life, but I also imagine it must be so tricky as a parent to know whether it is actually a pathology or a response to something that we really don't talk enough about, which is that if you can't see people's facial expressions, that's how the brain is supposed to learn so much about how to respond to someone else, the social anxiety that adults who are fully formed have from the pandemic. Like most of us, I still feel completely overwhelmed socially and I was 34 when we went into the pandemic, how's fully formed. And so I can't imagine what that must be like for a child. And so it just, all these pathologies, it must be such a minefield for parents and I'm really glad that you bring it up because it's not over. No, not at all. And I think as with anything, you know, there's a huge weariness around talking anything COVID related, which I think you're right people are going, "Oh God, I don't want to talk about that anymore, it's boring, it's this, it's that." But the reality is it created a different topography and you just have to, we're living on that landscape so you might as well sort of get on with it. And I've noticed with certainly the kids in my life just being super, kind of going into where they're at. I've noticed as opposed to kind of laying down the law and bringing all my fear of screens and put the phone down, get off social media, put the stop-look playing video games, doing all of that, rather than going in and playing with them in that space and having a conversation while we're there about what it might be doing has been so much more effective, not being so reactionary but rather being accepting that this is a whole other language that they have developed and discovered to deal with whatever it is they've been dealing with. And that there's a, I have to learn a new way of interacting with all of that stuff because my fear-based shit has not done anything. My kind of just, you know, my way or the highway, laying down the law around screens, for example, I don't think it works. So it's been interesting being really present with where these kids are at and observing it and being a bit more gentle with it. Yeah. I also think that it must be so difficult as a parent, you know, to be the first generation where the kids are in some way is more advanced because they have access to understanding of the social media platforms in a way that has left all of us a bit baffled, you know, and we've never in history seen kids learn anything before their parents really. And so it's normally been that we are the guides or the teachers or the parents or the guides and we show you how to do each thing and then there is a kind of level of, of, and I don't mean there's a controlling way but like a feeling of kind of leadership, I have a leader and I think that kids being so advanced in this thing that their parents are stuck behind on that. Most parents don't even know half the shit their kids are seeing and therefore reacting to. And so it means that that sense of I have a leader is dissipating in teenagers and they're just looking at their parents slightly rationally but also I can see why. As like, I don't know my leader, you don't know anything, you're not advanced, your way behind it, it's like, they've got the language down and they've got the concepts down but they don't actually have the lived experience of the things that they have the vocab before if that makes sense. And so, yeah, we're in this also very disrupting moment where kids are more advanced than we were of course but also feel so much more advanced in their parents when they aren't because there are still, I mean obviously that's a case by case basis but by adults in their lives who can be fruitful in the advice they give but I imagine for these teenagers that there's such that you can see on TikTok the way they talk about adults that they just feel like they already know it all because they've been fed. As tut toise maama storitelling kansa ja vapauta mielikuvituksesi tarinoilla jodka nostavat arjen uudelle tasolle. Kokele storiteljen nyt 60 miltapäivää yhdellä eurolla. Life's better with a story. Intellectual information which isn't the same as lived experience. As exactly as emotional development and being I think of being really sensitive to that and invariably there's you know there's always been these moments that parents have become this giant stick in the mud for teenagers you know my parents were but it was mostly around sort of going to the pub and staying outlay and you know that kind of more it didn't feel it didn't really was it didn't feel like it was going to have you know endless or at least far reaching impact on my my brain development. I don't know it's anyway my dad used to say never ask someone how they are because they'll tell you. I really didn't expect any of that answer all that conversation about those really interesting. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the boy? Well with LinkedIn ads you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. 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So to help us we brought in a reverse auctioneer which is apparently a thing. Int mobile unlimited premium wireless. How did it get 30 30 get 30 get 20 20 get 20 20 20 20 get 15 15 15 just 15 bucks a month. So give it a try at mint mobile dot com slash switch up front payment of $45 for three months plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of networks busy taxes and fees extra see mint mobile dot com. I'm fascinated by all of this. I've chosen not to have children but a lot of my friends have and I'm witnessing all of this happening in real time and just I can't even fathom how I would adapt to to such a like to something so unpredictable there's no template. There's no handbook for how to guide kids through the age technology or the age of a pandemic. And so I you know I applaud anyone who does because that is a it's you know it's a little bit of a minefield sometimes I imagine. You are I mean even just in the way that you speak about this you're clearly such a sensitive and thoughtful and introspective person. I think you know we can see that from your book from your interviews over the course of your career. I've always you know I said this to you and I sort of bumped into you. I think we met for the first time a month ago at a party and I the second I saw you I all my intrusive thoughts one about how much I love you and why and how much your interviews have meant to me and how much you as a figure in this industry have meant to me because you are very strong and very defiant and very candid and so my point of saying all of this is not to suck you off on the podcast but mostly just say on a go on and then I'll fight James. Yeah you've been through you've been through a lot in your in your life and in this industry and and given that you are someone so interested I guess in your own growth. How would you say you're doing like you know it's been a journey with your own mental health and confidence and stuff. Where are you at at the moment in this era of your life? It's interesting because I think more than one thing can be true at once. It used to be a lot more binary in that I was either good or bad and all of that was defined by whether I was working or not for such a long time. In fact up until I had my kid like my kid was this was this was wake up moment in for me. It would have been nice to wake up before but I didn't so what do you mean how did you wake up. Oh in that there was this there was this tiny person who was more important than than work. Work was always my definition of myself worth like whether I was being wanted was how good I felt about myself and it's it's astonishing like how long I spent in that in that paradigm and having Henry it woke me up because suddenly there was this externalised joy machine that needed that needed me and needed me to not just be thinking about myself. And what was weird was I had to give up not I had to give up I wanted to I gave up making films going off around the world I wanted Henry to have this I wanted him to have a stable a life as he could I had a very strange childhood that was full of unevenness joy and quite a lot of pain and I wanted him to have something steady so I stopped going off making independent movies or movies all around the world and I just called my agent and went can you just get me a show that's called shoots and Los Angeles and then I bought a house next to the studio and that's what I did for eight years to create this and in creating the stable environment for Henry I weirdly created the stable environment for myself and really sloughed off that need and desire which will never probably be truly gone of the desperate need for deprivation to kind of mark myself worth but rather to experience just being just not being worried about all of that stuff and not being worried about where the next job was coming from I learnt it's kind of not be worried about that at all and go I will get a job in a Starbucks if I have to it'll be fine. And do you feel like in that time where then your validation doesn't come entirely from your career that's when you've been able to kind of feel like you can stand up for yourself more or look back on your career as contemplatively as you have right you've like kind of gone you've gone back over the past few decades of your life and the experiences you've had and the ways in which you've been treated with a kind of new and empowered lens especially post-me too I think like a lot of us yeah but do you feel like you've had the liberation from because when you're in the middle of it in this sort of cyclone of your self-worth and validation being constantly up for debate it's really hard to fight back or to feel like you're allowed to fight back or talk about it or expose what's going on. Definitely I mean particularly when there have been punitive measures taken for a woman having done that which I did through the 90s and was roundly crucified for any moment of speaking up about you know whether it was the way one was treated on set that was markedly different from the way that men were treated on set. Any time I spoke up not even in an angry way but just spoke up you were just vilified this is pre-social media you know you're vilified in the media for having a voice and it was it's been a way in which women have been treated sort of for time immemorial which is that if you become a truth sayer you are shut down and it is apparently extremely dangerous and that women need to be silenced as quickly as possible. So there has been like enormous liberation I try not to get stuck in the feeling of frustration that it didn't happen sooner or that it isn't all encompassing and that there are so many women who are still silenced but it's been very invigorating I think very very carefully about what I say very carefully indeed but I don't have the same fear of reprisal that I did because I know that I'm older I'm considered I know that I am I can articulate these feelings in a way that isn't I think aggressive or offensive but rather articulate a particular fury that women have and I think of that as a superpower frankly. I completely agree and I love meeting women like you who also have that you know are able to marshal those thoughts and those feelings and articulate them in a in a humorous insightful deep funny great way. Thank you I appreciate that and I also have been deeply deeply vilified and punished for being as I've spoken as I am in a way that has forced me to like I definitely impacted me when it gave me anxiety but mostly it in a good way has taught me not to silence myself but just to shift similarly to you I guess my approach and to become a bit smarter with the way that I deliver my message because I think there was you know there was I don't know I think the internet and the the word counts flattened my brain a little bit so I don't think I was delivered my message you know all this rage was just pouring out of me and I feel like now I've gotten the large portion of it out publicly I'm able to calm down now and recognize that there's a more helpful way for me to express my opinion and so if anything I think I speak my mind more often because I don't need to choose my battles because my conflicts aren't battles anymore I just tell people with as much empathy. My conflicts aren't battles yeah that I I tell people now with as much empathy and and seeking empathy from them what my experiences in a way that doesn't make them feel as attacked and as annoying as it is to have to do that it has changed my life and meant that now my life is the most as I want it as it's ever been and and people are much more respectful towards me and that has all come from being able to learn how to deliver the message which I think we haven't really had a big conversation about publicly I think that's a really good point really good point yeah and I think that does come with age it does come with age it comes with wisdom it comes from trial and tribulation and we look at it now as silencing ourselves because you know we are somewhat not necessarily masking our rage but moderating it in some way like you know we're trying we're shrinking a little bit in our delivery and because we've been silenced for such a long time I think that we we feel very offended at the idea that we should have to package our message in a certain way but that is just human nature and the more I learn about the brain the more I understand that actually to get what we want we have to learn how to deliver the message not with us you know a wink and a smile but just with no I think it's a question of modulation yeah I mean it really is it's like it's like music yeah you sometimes that I have to change the tune completely you just have to modulate it differently yeah totally and humor really helps to greater effect it does can you talk a bit for anyone who hasn't you know maybe read about it do you feel comfortable talking about some of the things that you experienced in this industry a moment you spoke up and how that was I mean yeah yeah I mean look pre the reason the reason that I many driver 54 years old like social media whilst also being aware of the pitfalls are you just have no idea what it was like to not have any recourse when people were writing things about you saying things about you for there not to be anywhere that you could you could go to say I need to meet this these this total misrepresentation with a rep at least something to kind of balance it out so living through that were people were breaking down things that you'd apparently said which one true or done which one true but the way something is written in a newspaper no matter that it becomes chip what was it we used to say you know it was today's yeah tomorrow's chip paper um it was still unfathomably hurtful and I had an amazing I still do publicist who she was like unless they're talking about sort of sex crimes or drugs you don't respond you just don't you don't respond so this permanently taking a high road that felt like that road was made of broken glass and that the Daily Mail was allowed to write whatever they wanted about you or any tabloid newspaper or anyone you know I include the broadsheets like some of the most revolting press was in was in like the Guardian what were they saying about you oh that that that it was I think this idea that was always those words of like strident outspoken all of these things that I consider to be strong empathetic words about women that have this pejorative connotation the idea of speaking up of saying you know I remember there was one thing when I was in this movie hard rain with Christians later in Morgan Freeman and I was I think it we made it in I don't remember 96 96 and I remember we were we were in you know um 20 million gallons of water they built a town it's set during this massive storm there were huge rain machines we shot crazy hours it was tough like it was a tough movie but everybody else could wear a wetsuit underneath their costume and I was told by the producers that I couldn't because they wanted to see my nipples and that there was no point in having the wet t-shirt if you couldn't have what was underneath there and it was very kind of plainly told like you're an idiot if you don't understand that this is this is what's going on and I I remember saying this is wrong I remember calling my agent I then remember it being like I was boy like people wouldn't speak to me on the set like there was this kind of this bit I was so punished for it it was leaked to the press that I'd called and complained about conditions but it was it was it was as if there were nothing to complain about and that I would just complaining so it's this sort of ex not even existential there's this gas lighting media gas lighting that's supported by the environment that you're in and then you have to stay in that environment you know we shot that movie for seven months like it so you you eventually you do turn on yourself you do go it was my fault for saying anything you stupid big mouth you should have shut up and that goes in and then also the way in which you kind of see yourself and your your natural inclination to put your hand up and go this isn't right this is dangerous and not there's this is out of balance that you'll be punished for that stops you having a kind of a balanced way of approaching your life because you've been systemically told that it's wrong I mean that's just that's like an example like it was fine like it yeah it was uncomfortable but it was fine it was really the way in which it was dealt with was a kind of macro um teacher a lesson of how I think women exactly teacher a lesson shut her up and then that also then I think the press thinger oh this is a good narrative we can run with this so that anything that we can feed into this silo of what we believe is a perceived personality or behavior we will do so oh my god it really um yeah they ran with that for a long time it's a very clever it's a very clever tool in Hollywood you know I think that started from the minute that Marilyn Monroe I didn't not a lot of people know how much she fought for fair contracts in Hollywood especially for women but there there was always a marked move to make that woman sound crazy or look crazy or look difficult and in balance and the way that we weaponize the concept of a difficult woman just a woman who challenges anything meant that everyone then had to fight the urge to become a pick me you know it's like oh me I'm not difficult like those other girls no no no I'm fine I'll do I'll do anything I'll do anything you say I won't make a single peep about anything you want me to lose another 20 pounds even though I'm already thin I'm gonna do it I'm gonna do whatever you know I have a friend who told me that there was a role she did 10 years ago where they told her to eat six almonds for lunch every day and she did and it led to like a decade of gut problems so it's just it's just so fascinating how we just were anything to not be labeled difficult difficult and we were made to feel so crazy and I and this isn't just a Hollywood thing this is a this is just a kind of very exaggerated version of what's happening in every boardroom in every office at every you know even at you know universities this is just a kind of you know hyperbolic I guess like version of what's happening all over the world wherever you are wherever you work but but this very clever way in Hollywood if like oh she's a bit difficult and it was so easy for that term to be used I was having dinner recently and there was this huge Hollywood producer like one of the biggest Hollywood producers of all time at the table and he was just going on about which different woman was a nightmare to work with and whenever he would explain what she'd done she didn't sound like that much of a nightmare there were certain things that the women didn't want to do that they didn't do and then I'd say things like but you worked with Mel Gibson or like you know different people who were like and known abuse of alcoholics and all kinds of different people who were like yeah but he was a great artist and it was so interesting to me to see a man who was like firmly in his in the height of his power during that time of excusing men's you know being difficult as passion you know and just part of their artistic process I mean it's nice to be to call it interesting it's fucked up it's so it's so it's so yeah I know it's bizarre but it's so fast but it is fascinating to me because it isn't actual but like a belief system but when a woman does it she's just difficult and ungrateful and and it's also down to how replaceable we've all been made to feel in every area of our lives again this is an every industry you were always made to feel like you are completely replaceable and that has been weaponized against us and as you said we turn in ourselves we believe it yeah it took me ages to really like fight for me like five years I think of a much you know more modern industry to be able to actually start to advocate for myself I was terrified so you talk about turning on yourself and thinking I should never open my mouth did that stop you from then opening your mouth or did you continue and how did you continue to like how were you able to find the strength to do that if so I wonder I just I never really I never stopped I think they found other people to be obsessed about weirdly I don't think I ever stopped I think I've I think weirdly my I kind of I caught up with myself or basically maybe times changed enough to accommodate now I'm considered someone who all these different words you know like articulate and from from whether my podcast or my book or whatever somehow all these things that I have always been are now celebrated so something has shifted with the way in which maybe it's older women have been metabolized or that the industry now can no longer support just being purely abusive to women who speak up and I think again post me to and times up that that there was that was a huge watershed moment for women certainly in my industry but I don't think I ever really did change I really was punished I had years of of really finding it hard to get work and it being really difficult but I am an absolute I am dogmatic in my Astuttoise Maama's storytelling kansa and the way she was born in Tarinoa where she was born in the Arjen Udele Tazolle cokele story tellian utkusikumenta päivää yhdellä eurolla life's better with a story in my belief in what I can do and I'm I'm a grafter but I come from a long line of grafters of really hardworking people who are not afraid of that who will do whatever it takes to sort of keep the train moving along privately there might have been moments that I was sort of on my knees but but publicly and like certainly you know for my son or like wherever it would be like no you just keep on you keep on and you keep trying stay as calm as possible and keep all the plates in the air yeah and I think women I think women can probably relate to that you just keep on you do whatever you have to do but yeah I don't know I don't know that I ever changed I think maybe I got exhausted and stop saying anything at all for a while but I never I never stop thinking it I really related to your broken glass you know sentiment of talking about just swallowing it and sucking it up feeling like walking on broken glass like I definitely have kind of wavered in the last few years when I realized how much money being outspoken has cost me or how much of my career success has cost me or how many relationships don't form because people are afraid of what I'm going to be like because of the way that I've been portrayed in the media even though I'm a largely reasonable person and so there are times where my resolution like kind of falters and I'm like fuck should I have just shot up should I have just been Tahani you know the character that I played on the good place I should I have just taken it and run with it and maybe then used my voice later you know when I had more power rather than sort of nipping like nipping it in the barred or like you know cutting my nose despite my face and limiting the kind of reach I had but fundamentally I don't think that my mental health would have survived having to be that disingenuous would have survived participating in something that I hated so much silently I don't mean the industry I just mean the way that the industry treated women I think I think my mental health has been saved for the fact that I have been at least integral there will always be like ways in which I wish I'd done something maybe a bit differently but ultimately and I wonder how you feel about this I ultimately I have no real regrets about having chosen to operate that way I just regret my language well I mean at least that's something that you can change yeah exactly hi five casino is the top sweepstakes casino this free to play sign up today to receive a free welcome bonus and exclusive first purchase offers choose the premium jackpot package for 29.99 and claim up to 700 gain coins 55 sweepscoins one sweepscoyne daily bonus for five days and 400 diamonds your high five moment awaits at highfivecacino.com no purchase necessary boardweb inhibited by law must be 21 years or older terms and conditions apply you know yeah I don't know regret like I don't know man that's it really is like what's done is done I'm just moving on from that you know when one hasn't done anything cataclysmic or genuinely hurt somebody else I don't know I think you just everybody has things that they they wish you could maybe we're revisionist about but ultimately it's a forward facing it's a forward facing business looking back does absolutely nothing unless one can do it really calmly and I don't know go and pick over the calls and learn something but could but then face forward and move forward with that information like I get stuck when I look back I stay looking back and that's been a that can be a real a real sinkhole yeah and it is a largely female thing that we're encouraged to do right is that to constantly go over what we got wrong and see how we could do a better job and yet I notice that young men are often just told to keep driving forward I've spoken about it a fair bit on this podcast before you know and also that that really fascinating quote that sort of emerged that I saw for the first time last year of the fact that you know in job interviews largely men are hired for who they're going to be and women are only hired for what they've already done wow that's interesting and I thought that was really astonishing like the different the different standards that we are held up to and the lack of potential seen in us and the lack of interest in our growth and how harder it is then to get your foot in the door how much harder it is to get your foot in the door and I that just that really likes since I've read it I haven't been able to get it out of my head and think about every extraordinary woman I know and the hurdle she's had but some of you and I was talking about on the phone that we were really bonding over is the fact that you know I'm almost 40 I am I'm getting to a point in the industry where I was always told everything would be over and done and so I have to pack it all in while I can and yet I just feel the most happy and comfortable and confident I've ever felt and I have such a reverence and respect and love of growing older which is a tricky journey for everyone you know it's different for everyone and I wanted to talk to you about that no longer just privately over the phone what has your experience been with you know entering into 50s and being in an industry that is so hyper focused on our appearance and our worth and value where are you at with your journey with age well yeah you can't you can't stop it like I'm quite practical about yes whole notion of I literally cannot stop it and if I'm alive even if I'm old it means I'm not dead which is for me a good thing it's ideal yeah I can't it's it's it's optimal yeah I can't stop this process so anything in my life that I've dug my heels in that I've known I could change that's when it's to dig my heels in if I really this is a hill that I want to die on I know I can judge I can't change getting older every day that I wake up that is another another day now that's not to say the carbon-based breakdown of my body you know I've been an athlete my whole life I have a chronic neck pain that I'm dealing with at the moment that is stopping me from surfing from playing tennis from running from doing all the things that I love to do however um it's just what is happening and I have to just get on with that and I can optimize that journey by the way that I think about it um and my my partner will laugh when he hears this because all he hears is me whining and complaining about how much everything hurts but I don't know it's balanced out by this enormous uh kind of confidence and calmness about being older and about being just so much sure about stuff because I've gotten to test my theory that much longer about many many different things I've gotten to practice things that don't work and then practice things that do work and really be able to get like what um for example I always want to jump off the ledge when when something isn't working out I my natural state always has been too panic and then to suck in every other thing that isn't working to create a kind of tornado of shit and then exist within that tornado and it is almost destroyed me and then finally when I've reached the absolute formination of panic then maybe I can find a solution and now there's this this brilliant from just having done that so many times and going I hate this of sort of standing on the precipice of that and choosing not to go down that into that tornado down that sinkhole whatever analogy you want to use and to breathe and take a moment separate out all the other things be able to kind of become hyper focus on the one thing deal with that and then experience what it's like to not do what I have always done um that has come with age that has literally come from doing the same thing a million times experiencing the insanity of that and then I honestly attribute it to age of being able to go I don't want to do that and I can apply that to everything I don't want to have that conversation I don't want to work with that person anymore I don't want to take this movie because I know all the stuff about these people and I'm I'm stoked to not work with them um I do want to write this book I really do it's such a great idea it's going to take you a really long time and I don't know there's going to be a market for it I still want to write it those are the things that come with age which is a kind of maybe a gut check that isn't panic that is calm I can actually hear in the noise of everything and go everything would traditionally say no to this but I actually feel like this is the correct thing to do yeah I love that yeah that's so pain the neck pain is balanced out by by that yeah that gut check yeah I miss my knees I really miss my knees I have I miss I miss them working uh every day I uh the the sound they make when I just even um sit down for a wee is just terrifying to me it's like maracas or something is going on in there uh I look at Megan Lee Stallion uh you know twerking for about 15 minutes straight uh like in a sort of in a held squat and I just can't even I can't even remember having these like that so other than that though I um I feel as though a lot of the fear mongering that I experienced my whole life has just been ultimately disproven with time you know all of the things that we didn't even we that I didn't even come up with myself so many of my fears and anxieties were projected onto me by other people and sort of planted in me and then you know I watered and fed them and then they grew and they became my own but so many of them were like if you do this this will happen if you don't do that if you eat this then your body will change and then no one's going to love you anymore if you say this thing then everyone's going to stop being friends with you like like there are so many things that I was told would be true that turned out not to be and I had to just this is what we were talking about earlier is that there's a difference between knowing something cognitively and actually experiencing it because yeah it's it's such a spectrum of outcomes and having survived so many different spectrums of outcomes I now feel much more like okay well I know what this is I know what I'm doing and I also I just I just despise the way that we this this extraordinary and insidious lie that we lose women specifically lose their value with time the more we know the less valuable we are we and and somehow the kind of the wise chrome like though the wise older woman has been replaced with like the strong older man and like he's wise and he's strong and he's got all this insight and value and we should just either try to still look 25 forever or kill ourselves we should just disappear so no one has to look at our terrible old faces and it's it's not going away even with all the feminism even with all of the work we've done you know on this subject and the ways in which we've challenged the double standard about men and women we're still seeing like one of the biggest things going around on tick tock an Instagram right now is like the sort of debate of millennials looking young for their age and Gen Z looks so old for their age and we have 11 year olds worrying about retinal I didn't know what retinal was until last year I still don't actually know what it is I don't know what a toner does I don't know what it is it sounds like the gym I don't I've never participated in it there's so much that I I'm not aware of that like 10 and 11 year olds are learning about they're learning about exfoliating those little baby faces where the skin cells are still growing for the first time it's just still a debate people are still bragging about the fact that they look so young at 30 because they've been having Botox since they were 22 like this is still something that people are so concerned with and and it's all it's not really tied to aesthetic it's tied to the idea that once you look like you have experience once what's time is showing on your face you look experience you become invaluable whereas really what it is is that you become a threat do you know what I mean that's what it is it's that with with threatened by a woman with experience and with that autonomy and with a woman but threatened by a woman who's learned that the fear mongering was inaccurate do you feel that way do you feel more valuable it's really interesting god um yeah I feel like I have more I feel like I have more to offer than my fear of looking old I really I really and not I just don't feel I know that I have more to offer and I reject roundly the notion that a woman with a wrinkled face or a thicker midline have any have anything less to offer than a young bouncy um juicy looking girl who honestly we have to be clear that that is just offering the notion of a kind of a fecund body that can breed and sex like that idea that that is what we're meant to the we're meant to aspire to it was so cool being that bouncy squishy yummy thing and now it's amazing being someone who lived that and now has all of these thoughts and can write them down and can converse with other people and that isn't afraid to actually have a bit of space and silence in between when someone asks me a question that I won't immediately feel like I have to answer but can think about it um I I want there to be freedom for all women freedom at whatever stage of life they're at whether they're in their 20s 30s or 40s with the idea that it is self-described it's not a fucking system and that any time you think it is and that you're looking at an algorithm telling you you know either what you should be buying or how you should be looking to immediately use that as a red flag to question your own belief about what it is and your own like interaction with your own life and experience because that's that's the minute we become robots I don't know about being scared about AI but the minute we we are the robots if we are only looking to believe what we think is a general consensus that's been secured for us by fear and an algorithmic based interaction and fashion magazines and media and all these different things that are telling us how to behave yeah and what to look like absolutely and I feel excited for the for Gen Z and that they seem to have more of a sense of individualism that we did but it is insidious and it comes it comes for us all it really does and so part of me wonders sometimes if the fear is that those of us who are quote unquote aged and experienced and who have you know who have found the joy in our own agency and autonomy is the fear that we're going to tell the yummy juicy young ones the bouncy ones the truth about how things work and then they might be God forbid yummy and bouncy and juicy and also and wise you know do you know what I mean so it's like that there's this kind of concerted effort to discredit those who might be able to warn the others so she's like don't listen to her she's old and she's washed up and she's bitter she's bitter and so she's lying to kind of ruin your fun which is not at all what we're trying to do because I think I think I think it's much more fun in life I would have had more fun I don't know about you if I'd known some of the road blocks ahead were coming and I wouldn't have been fucking constantly blindsided all the time I wish that I'd known more I wish that the generation before me hadn't been so silenced they were so silent so I wasn't warned about fucking anything and then I spent life in trauma from all these surprises when really I could have just known what was coming and navigated myself somewhat around you can't protect yourself from everything I don't think that's what we're trying to do but I think we're just trying to give people a bit of a road map and people keep burning our road map but I think there is more wisdom available for younger women and men I think there is more wisdom available because of the way that media has evolved the availability of information but what's interesting is that you can you can cater to whatever it is you want to support you can you can find everything to support the eating no carbohydrates is going to be the best thing for you that the keto diet is the best way ahead you can find something that supports the absolute opposite so weirdly we can we can find stuff to support our own truth but I still think spending time investigating what that is to know because I know that you can feel it in the pit of your stomach and in your heart you can feel what actually is right for you we just most people aren't we're not we're not trained to listen so I think getting trained to listen to that however that is I don't know whether you want to take a walk on the beach whether you go swimming whether you sit and you meditate you do yoga whatever it is but to investigate that seems to be the most powerful thing because there is so much noise and I wish that I had started listening listening and trusting much earlier but doing it now is cool and perhaps it's all seasonal you really only this is the that's the gift that it's given to you when you're a bit older and that's a possibility and maybe people will listen and maybe they won't well I think now they now they can listen they are listening and I think activism has been an advocacy and feminism has been hugely instrumental in that and I think the reason they're such a backlash against feminism now you know with the rise of kind of in-self-cultural red pill culture is because it is so potent is because it is so is because it is traveling so far and and women are finding their self respect at younger and younger ages and that's so amazing to watch yeah and yeah and I guess that's why I want to lean in to my you know wiser and older years and and to reframe the fact that we're seen as invisible after a certain age to say no I'm just seen in a different way I'm still seen I'm just seen in a different way in a different context and in a way that actually I feel more comfortable with where I feel like now that I'm older I have more control over the way I'm seen I'm not able to be as easily objectified and projected onto because I'm so firmly myself and that's just something that I I hope other people start to reframe as because there is really like a huge in the last few years post pandemic a huge it felt like 2020 we started to embrace ourselves more you know we weren't wearing makeup we weren't getting dressed up anymore we were just sort of at home veging out and just all bonding over how liberating that was and then almost by design there's been a huge swing in the other direction of a kind of obsessiveness about appearance and an obsessiveness about aging that just that that's why I wanted to just talk to you about it because I feel like you've had a kind of journey with you know embracing your own aesthetic you know you're someone whose body type was always scrutinized I feel like early on in your career yeah and also the fact that we are women who are not afraid of talking about graduating into different periods of life I mean the idea that it's not seasonal is just absurd the idea that one should remain eternally young and it starts to look creepy and dull like an odd and weird and I don't know just like the the the the the very youthful idea of embracing way your act which is for me fundamentally when I was when I was young young presence being present I didn't wake up every day and think about I was just where I was at every single day whatever happened happened I refused to mourn the loss of that if I wake up every day and it's like I don't look great it's like all right well what's the best version of this because as Carrie Fisher once said to me on my 25th birthday she went this is the youngest you're ever going to be again and every birthday will remind you of that it is the youngest you will ever be again so shut the fuck up and get on with that like it just make the best of what of what's going on and what did she say she was like she said try not to be crazy which I always appreciate it to struggle you gotta make you gotta make an effort you gotta make an effort she was so wonderful and wise and amazing and and divine and lovely and she saw she saw a young woman struggling and she used to take time to come and talk to me and she would ask me how I was and I go I'm fine she don't don't give me that bullshit tell me how are you what's going on and I go you're gonna think I'm dumb for saying I feel like I'm washed up because I'm 30 and she'd be like you're right I do think you're dumb here but here's what's here's what's up and then she tell me a whole thing and I would feel galvanized she she was always looking in she was always looking into other people to check in with how they were even as she herself struggled she was always checking in so I don't know I remember to do that I do that with my younger friends all the time yeah what's going on how you feeling what's up what are you scared of and then like oh I don't want to say that I've filled all that I'm 30 and I was like what because I'm because I'm so much older than you yeah kind of yeah as I guess fine is really fine and then like okay I feel ready all I'm like okay good that's that's okay it's funny you're older than you are and and I don't think I don't think you even mean it in a judgmental way when you were talking about the the look of trying to kind of freeze time it's it's with empathy it's with empathy it's why we want it's why we want to do that it's why we feel the need to go do that I think a woman a woman can do whatever she wants with her body but it's also telegraphing a particular message and for me just in terms of like where where we're at and the women that I've talked to and what I see around me it's not it's not telling a story of a feeling okay and that's a bit that makes me sad because I get bowtogs like I'll do that like I can I'll do the stuff that I feel is you know what I what's right for me and if a woman wants to go choose to do that with her face I agree but it speaks to I wish that I didn't do anything I wish that I was like yeah I'm just gonna I'm just gonna be wrinkly and older now and I'm gonna stop trying to stay in shape because that's what I've done my whole life maybe I should just sit down because I don't know I'm constantly interrogating it I think it's nothing wrong with exercising like that's important for your mental health and I think being athletic is fantastic yeah like I said I think I think my my perspective on this is is one that is probably a bit sadder than other people's which is that I hated being young so much I hated it so much I totally wasted it on it wasn't my fault that it just kind of got wasted by all the trauma and how hard I found it to be alive back then that I don't look back with any fondness at all at my juiciest years I don't I look at it as just like I see not I don't see other people this way but I see young pictures of myself and I can I can see the terror in my eyes and how even when I'm smiling I can see how sad I was and how confused I was and I and I I feel like my sort of juiciness contributed to my problems because because I was so sexualized and and I was so abused you know because sometimes people found me attractive and and so when I look back on those years I just can't wait to if I can get away from them I can't wait I don't ever want to look like that again I don't ever want to see I don't want to see that version of me ever again like I I see like there are little moments where I realize I have to get out of Los Angeles because I'm like starting to look at my my face and start to go like would it have looked better if it was like this and then I immediately go okay I need to go to Europe immediately go away but but generally I never want I never want to be that again I look at it as the scariest time in my life and and so I for me I'm running away I'm running at full speed towards being older and and calmer and and wiser and and and of less value aesthetically to other people if that makes sense yeah I mean I think you have a very different you have a very particular um relationship with with all of that because you are that's what people have all have seen first that you are incredibly beautiful um and what they're what they've come to know is all of the rest of you everything else that is more expansive and more um dimensional yeah and I didn't mean that as in like we should shine aesthetics that's not why I'm in I just more mental I think every I was just like that's the thing I never want to chase I want to run away from that yeah your relationship is your relationship with it it's like you don't want to you don't want to go back to that I think everyone maybe I just think everyone has to has to um has to be really present for what their relationship with themself is themself not what they see how everybody else metabolizes them or an aesthetic that they think they're supposed to follow but really who they are and what is that optimized version of them but it requires self-knowledge and self-inquiry again which is often painful people don't want to do that they just want to put on the mask and have that be the thing that people metabolize rather than actually synthesizing how life is affected to you your environment your childhood your everything and then decide who you are going to be as a result of that how you are going to look how you are going to speak what you are going to do um so perhaps it's about slowing down and paying attention and being empathetic to ourselves first yeah it's also hard I think part of what makes it discourages us from figuring out where that messaging comes from is that it's so it's like a mist in the air at this point because it's in our phone it's like on our screens it's everywhere we turn it's in the conversations that we over here it's in the conversations that we have with ourselves privately so it's hard to trace back exactly where these ideas come from of how we should behave or how we should look or what way we should be but do you think that we can we can we can identify what makes up but what makes us feel good so in whatever environment you live we all have the things that whether it's I don't know for me it is going and being in the ocean or buy it I fundamentally feel different and I know that that mindset is the place to to begin from of looking at all the other stuff that you can you can see it almost as if it's a lighting change that you start seeing all of the things that I'm being that are being sold to you and that are away from that fundamental truth but I think you have to in you have to be intentional about that and go I'm interested in going and finding the place that I actually know this is where I feel good whatever that is for you and then using that as your litmus test in a way that's so wise that's so wise that I could just punch you in the face thank God you're in on zoom that's so wise because essentially what you're saying is that what I gather from what you're saying is that that all of this toxicity can be found in the dark and so if we fill that darkness with our own individual light of like I love spending time with my dogs I love spending time with my kid I love spending time with my friends because that is I think probably the thing that has happened in my life post pandemic is that I have made such a concerted effort to fill my life with joy that I don't have time any longer to think about to sweat the small stuff and to sweat the meaningless stuff that didn't actually come from within now I'm actually answering to my fundamental needs and there's less space there's less time even to think about myself because I've filled it with like hobbies and friends and fun and pleasure and so I think it becomes much more difficult to admit that other stuff it because it doesn't have anything to bounce off if you have identified and it's not doing big crazy glamourous things it's like what you said it's like snuggling with your dog or talking to your child or holding your partner's hand when you go or in the supermarket like whatever those things that make you feel that way all that other stuff then it it doesn't kind of hold up in a way or at least you can identify it as that other thing that is present in our life but I have to judge it I just don't need to engage with it in the way that I did before or certainly let it be the standard bearer for what my how I want to move forward in my life it just takes its place on the great big fucking bus of my life in the back along with the other troublesome kids yeah yeah you just we just leave no space for it there's no space for it I was in a on Saturday night me and my you know one of my best friends who I've known since I was 11 we were at a ball pit at a party just a big old ball pit and it was some of the most fun I've ever had and in in no moment was there even the thought of how do I look do I look old have I have I like have I passed it it's my career fading it wasn't on my mind I was just having fun in a ball pit with another woman who's always 14 I know it's fucking brilliant and the more that we spend our time engaging in that it's something that I was sort of doing unconsciously but the way that you've worded it so important because it doesn't dwell on the negative it doesn't dwell on investigating even really the negative which I think to some degree we have to know so we can you know see where the threat is coming from but you are focusing on like a forceful enthusiastic approach to a pleasurable life and I think that's really important yeah be that way facing yeah at least you know what the other thing that I've been that I'm obsessed with oh I know I've really wanted to talk to you about this was that 60% should be our 100% it is ridiculous and harsh to aim for 100% of anything that 60% should really be what we are aiming for and that if we you leave that margin of error and mistaken it's not fully going to work out if 60% becomes what you what you aim for this it's amazing how much pressure is taken off and how much pressure that deficit a comedy it's and I think we've been sold a really raw bill of goods in thinking that we should be 100% of anything at any given time really yeah well it's not possible but there is such a huge swing toward that 100% there's such a terror about being mediocre and you're told that mediocrity will be found at 60% but I think that's not true because I think actually when you make space when you make space for failure that's where you normally find the most growth and the best ideas and the funnier stories 100 100 yeah 100% yeah 60% okay I don't I don't I'll start I'll join that movement with you I love the sound of that the thing is I just I think that it is it is 100% 60% this notion of mediocrity like we all know kind of what that feels like but what we what we're kind of aiming for like 100% happy all the time it's not possible 100% a great partner 100% a great mother 100% a working actor it's not fucking possible you can't be that so the idea of just allowing there to be this deficit that 40% is the gray area it's not black and white either or either I'm 100% or I'm shit it's somewhere in the middle and that we I realize that I am now becoming the I and now mediocrity is actually I want that on a t-shirt yeah 60% sure is what I'm going to get on a t-shirt I just maybe I just have to live it and then I'll write a book called 60 60% I mean I'm kind of already I'm kind of already at 60% I decided to you know I told you about this on the phone that I've in the last few years I've fully scaled back my career where I was just like oh God I'm you know I got really sick and then I I realized that oh God if I actually if this does actually kill me I'm gonna really regret the way I've lived the last decade like I had some fun and I'm amazing celebrities but I also think that I didn't know enough of what was going on with my friends and I didn't spend enough time with my dog and I'm so aware of the fact that he's getting older every year and I really want to make sure that I look back at the end of our time together and go like I made the most of him because he's the fucking best and so I've I've definitely been I'm very much so living my life now in fear of actual regret so I'm I'm never gonna regret I'm never gonna really on like a spiritual level regret a job I didn't take in the way that I'm in a regret not having spent enough time with a friend not having spent enough time with my boyfriend not having spent enough time engaging in pleasure and resting oh to rest to have had a nap yesterday with my dogs at 4 p.m. was unbelievable and then to be working up with a cup of tea by my partner I was like this this is bliss and so I've been chasing those moments and then working just enough to sustain them I'm selling my house I'm going to live a cheaper life so that I can do more of what I love and it's very rare that you you really make a lot of money you know doing your most indulgent pleasures and so I just that's it I'm chasing I'm I'm already on that 60% flex and so I'm ready to join the movement I'm ready and really I think it's great we're starting it right here yeah I think it's at least worth investigating you know I really do yeah of like what is I can't rest 100% at the time because I die of boredom I die of under simulations so yeah exactly you start applying it to every area of life and I'm telling you I like the specificity of it because we're all told balance but we're not really told how to actually tip the balance like how to actually scale that out we're just told balance is key moderation is key but you're giving people a finite number to hit all right let's all go for 60% I mean I'm calling it 60 it's just less than a hundred and also not 90 because that's also a lot yeah 90s politics that's too much yeah it's somewhere look you can probably go up to like 75 if you're a real overachiever for me it's 60 great um your ideal you have a podcast will you tell us what the podcast is about so people can find you there and find more of your yeah yeah well I very much enjoyed proves to had a questionnaire back in the 19th century which was meant to be a kind of like a parlor game and I've always loved the notion of finite questions revealing something about a person so I ask the same seven questions to everyone that comes on the podcast and invariably the answers are so different and the follow-up questions are so different because we are all so different but there are areas that we overlap and it's it's interesting it's become my own personal little cultural anthology um I really am fascinated by the people that I talk to and yeah if that's my podcast it's called mini questions and you can find it wherever you listen fabulous uh everyone go listen to that uh you've been a total delight this was so fun and this is uh you know when I was little I'm watching all your movies and your interviews I always hoped this would be how our first proper conversation went and um and uh I'm I'd like you thank you so much thank you you're absolutely gorgeous thank you like guys thank you so much for listening to this week's episode I weigh with Jermina Jamil's produced and researched by myself Jermina Jamil Aaron Finnegan Kimmy Gregory and Amelia Chappelo and the beautiful music that you are hearing now is made by my boyfriend James Blake and if you haven't already please rate review and subscribe to the show it's such a great way to show your support and helps me out massively and lastly our iWay we would love to hear from you and share what you weigh at the end of this podcast please email us a voice recording sharing what you weigh at [email protected] and now we would love to pass the mic to one of our listeners iWay my ability to challenge myself and still learn new parts of me i didn't know where they're before iWay my ability to love people for who they are and not for what they can give me iWay the love i have for my cats my constant companions and iWay my ability to acknowledge my anxieties but push forward anyway hi five casino is the top choice for social casino gaming that's free to play but chances to win a redeem for real cash prizes free spend rewards and tons of exclusive games you can experience more high five moments than ever before you're gonna want to high five everyone the neighbors the mailman all your co-workers of course your friends well you get the point your high five moment awaits at highfivec casino.com no purchase necessary void we're prohibited by law must be 21 years or older terms and 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