S7, Ep 3: Golda Rosheuvel, actor

0:00This is The Guardian.

0:07I'm Grace Dent and this is Comfort Eating from The Guardian a podcast where we pay homage to the lesser celebrated foods in life because even as a restaurant critic I believe the food that matters most is often that snack you cobbled together when you curled upon the sofa Each week, I ask my guest to lift the lid on what comfort foods have seen them through their lives. Because you can tell a lot about a person from what they eat behind closed doors.

0:44Hello there. Before we start, I wanted to let you know that this episode contains some swearing and themes that may not be appropriate for all listeners.

0:56Hello, friends. okay you've caught me red-handed with my mitts in the biscuit tin i have a lovely packet of shortbread on the go here it is not my shortbread i hasten to add i don't personally like it or eat it it is lucy my producer who likes it i bought her this gift being the thoughtful little puppet that i am and whoops here i am lying down two sticks from the end almost at the crumbs very good very good i bought this packet a while ago so i was genuinely worried that it was going off this is true i hate food waste if anything by eating this i am saving the planet sometimes I think we button ourselves up so much and letting it all go gets a bad rap.

1:55But honestly, there is a power in just saying yes. I'm sure that I can find a whole list of things that I should be saying no to tomorrow. Very buttery. This guilt-free splurge has gone beautifully with another fine example of my lack of willpower, binge-watching Bridgerton. I started this shortbread last night as I turned on season three just to watch a couple of episodes to research today's guest. And now, just like with the shortbread, here I am this morning, lying in bed, gobbling up those delicious, sexy, savage, final little bits. because walking through my door very soon will be none other than Queen Charlotte herself or as her friends call her, Golda Rochevel.

2:47Golda is best known for her role as the formidable Queen Charlotte in the hugely successful record-breaking Netflix series Bridgerton. Golda's Queen Charlotte steals every scene she's in not just because of the magnificent and neck-breaking wigs. This season, I think I saw a scene of battery-operated swans swimming around inside a wig. You'd have to see it to believe it. But because of her acerbic levels of sass. To top this, Queen Charlotte now has a spin-off prequel, Queen Charlotte, A Bridgerton Story, which came out last year. Before Bridgerton fame, Golda's breakthrough role was playing a female Othello at the Liverpool Everyman, rooting herself as an actor who challenges traditional casting.

3:34Today, I want to find out what Golda eats to channel her inner Queen Charlotte. I'm thinking swan. It's got to be swan, hasn't it?

3:49Golda Rashaval, it's very nice to have you here. This is the first time I've had a guest on my show that I have a strong need to curtsy to. Oh gosh, darling, don't do that. I'll never get up again. You're just a normal mortal. I am, yes, just a normal mortal. Welcome to Comfort Eaton. Thank you very much. Good to be here. You were once a talented athlete. I was once. I'm going to set you a test. Okay. We're standing at Oxford Circus. Right. We've both just had a rifle through H &M. Yes. And you are going to jump on the 73, but you've just missed it. How far are you prepared to run to catch that bus?

4:29Not far enough to catch it. 40 meters? No. My knees and my back wouldn't allow it these days. Teenage. Yeah. Golder. Oh, I would have, I would have gone, got in front of that babe. Yeah. And probably the one before it. I broke records, mate. Yeah. I was going to say fastest time of 100 meters. 12, maybe something like that. 12 or 13. You were that girl in the, in the, in the gym knickers just like whizzing past me. I don't think we'd have spoken much at school. I was that girl that was behind the crash mat smoking a Regal King size. Yeah. Yeah. People that I envied. Yeah, but when you broke your ankle, you'd have come and seen me.

5:07I was there, mate. Yeah, definitely. Rock and roll. Yeah. Drugs and rock and roll. Stepped in. You've been busy filming Bridgerton lately, but when you're back at home in South London, the wigs are off. Yeah. Your neck is aching. The coal sheet from that day is safely in the recycling. Yeah. What are you eating? It's in front of us here. Okay. Okay. reveal first. What is this? Oh my God, look at this. Well done, everybody. Right. First of all. This is the ultimate. Thank you. Yeah, mate. Come on. This is the ultimate comfort food. Please explain what it is. Spag bowl. Yeah, baby. Come on. Let's get in.

5:45This is a vegan plant-based spag bowl. It's got no meat in it. No kind of faux meat either. And it's got really amazing walnuts. Oh my God, that's what they are. Yeah. That kind of give you that meaty texture you know your usual suspects tomato all of that bit of basil why not fake meat i don't like the taste of it i think i've been vegan for like 20 21 22 23 years you remember when people came spaghetti as well spaghetti it never lets you down love it relationships come and go but literally a packet of spaghetti in salted water will always Always give you love. But the other thing about spag bol for me, and I'll take you back to like the student days.

6:34Oh, please do. You know, when I had like five pound to my name and a batch of spag bol would last me three, four days. You can have it with a simple jacket potato. A spag bol with jacket potato is the combo I've never thought of. And now I can never unthink it. With a sprinkle of cheese. Ooh, lovely.

7:01I want to take you back to that day you first auditioned for Bridgerton. It's 2019. You are 49 years old, a working TV and theatre actress. Yeah. And the call comes from your agent. There's this new show with some big names attached. Yeah. So off you go. How did it go? You're nervous. I auditioned for Lady Danbury originally. And one of the problems is I'm dyslexic. So, you know, you get about three, four scenes maybe to learn in a couple of days. I learned this stuff like I thought it was coming out of my ass. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. When I got inside the room, it just all fell apart. Because you walk in.

7:45You walk in and the pressure of it and everything just goes. You know, the call came in about an hour later to say, we're really sorry. We're not going to think of you for that part. But could you do a little self-tape for this part of the Queen? Me and my wife were going off on holiday, like literally the next day. And I was so like, oh, God. And it was one scene that I had to do. It was literally a paragraph. and we did it in like an hour and the first take I said to Shireen my partner I said well just send it just send it yeah I love the fact that you do yourself tapes with you with your other half yeah she's these long-suffering people that have to put up with Chris it's like put the suitcases down love we're doing a self-tape I know bless her heart yeah she is her eyes do roll oh god but um she's great she's a writer so it's really good to have her kind of um intellect and insight into stuff.

8:44I go off to France, meet our mates. And in between Christmas and New Year, I get a call from my agent saying, the director really liked your tape. And it's gone to Shonda Rhimes. That's Shonda Rhimes, the brains behind Bridgerton. Yeah. Shonda Rhimes is looking at my tape. Yeah. Okay. This is weird. And then we got back off the holiday and all the offices, you know, come back to work and things start up again. And I get the call that I've got the job. What's your first start? What's the first thing that kicks in? I think I get that don't fuck up thing at the table read. When everybody else is there and you're like, oh, okay.

9:22It's not just me and her. There's like a whole other thing happening here. That's when I go. Okay. Some people are really good at table reads. Really good at table reads. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think I'm one of those people. I believe you. More spag ball. So the show comes out in 2020. Yeah. And it goes onto Netflix. Very, very crowded viewing platform, right? So there is a chance here. That it'll get lost. Just gone, right? And it is watched by 82 million households. Oh, God. I love that look on your face. 82 million households. Yeah. This is a record breaker for Netflix. How much did it change your life?

10:13150%. Could we walk through a shopping centre together? No. Today, come out the cab, six American girls. Are you? I was like, yeah. But before Bridgerton, were you more anonymous? Yeah, 100%. But I still ride the bus. I need to be with my people. You've never sounded more like the Queen, though. I need to be with my community. I love. I just ride the bus. Sometimes I just get on the bus. I don't even know where I'm going. But joking aside, do you notice people having like a touch of deference when they're talking to you as if at some level, you must be part of the British monarchy? I do. I do.

11:01I do. And it's a very strange thing. And I think I'm very hyper to it. I'm glad that this has happened now. I'm sober. But I think back in the day, if this had happened, I think, I don't think I would have been here. I know. I really don't think I would have been here. I wouldn't have been able to. Is it the adoration mixed with the parties? No, I think it's the privacy that is invaded. Are you always waiting for someone to click on that you can't actually do the thing that you? Yeah. I find the negative comments quite interesting. Sorry, what? I do. Like, who does she think she is? I'm like, whoa, okay.

11:38Come on. Let's sit down and have a chat. What are you talking about? Tell me about your life. I'm like that. Whoa. I lean into that stuff. Because that's interesting to me. You're very unique. I'm like, that's a little bit of a missus. Look at this. Look at this person. Wow, great. Hello, Jo from ZYX.QQZZ. I'm interested in that. because that's messy.

12:11We're three seasons into Bridgerton, and there's been a spin-off show about your character, Queen Charlotte, and they're all filmed in these gorgeous spots, Hampton Court, Blenheim Palace. Like, look, visiting these places, this is what I do on my day off. My idea of a lovely Sunday is looking at Henry VIII's codpiece in some dusty old room and then eating an overpriced scone. That is a happy grace. Oh, mate. Had you been to places like this before all of this? I had. Blenheim, because I used to go there as a child. You know, my mum used to drag me and my brother around, you know, these amazing places.

12:52And there I was as Queen Charlotte. Paint a picture of like a day trip like that. You get up in the morning and just like take me through the... So the day trip begins possibly maybe three, four days before where my mum starts cooking. Because picnics aren't sandwiches and a carton of juice. It's like there are sandwiches, there are cartons of juice, but you have the roasted chicken. Beautiful, gorgeous. My mum used to make these beautiful little pastries, her own homemade pastry. similar to kind of spag bol mints yes with peas and stuff in and then a little pastry top she'd make them thousands of them who is this goddess um sausage rolls homemade homemade drink like sorrel do you know sorrel yes yeah bit of sorrel a flask of tea biscuits fruit it was a banquet how do you transport this magical banquet is one of you just pushing it on a massive trolley.

13:56People got like rucksacks. It's bags, it's rucksacks, it's Golda at five years old, six years old, seven years old, 10 years old. Carry that bag, my brother on a backpack, you know, with my mum. And we would drive up to these places and, you know, blankets, chairs, and you park yourself up and everything gets shared. And those poor people sitting in the cafe with their drab piece of quiche. it's got a damp bottom and it's just egg you know and spinach you've just got this banquet someone's got like a chicken leg and it's just yeah it's beautifully browned on the skin that was us as kids and also like the church as well we used to have like picnics with the church and stuff yeah like a little tour around i should specify yeah your mom your mom is english and your dad is a guyanese church of england priest yeah so they're both past rest of the rest of ourselves you were born and raised in guiana in south america until you were five yeah what's your earliest memory being a tiny child there i have a few strong memories of my nanny and i remember burning my tongue i remember that and i remember our house on stilts okay yeah we had a house on stilts because of the flooding.

15:14It was a wheat field, I think it was, beside the house. I think the church was across from our house. My mum and dad used to tell these stories of my mum hitching me onto her back and my father and her would hike up into the bush and take communion to the indigenous tribes that were Christian. Wow. I love that you have no memory of that. I have no memory of that. But you remember burning your tongue. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had a curse put on me apparently. What for? Not quite sure. Well, it clearly can't have been a very good curse. Well, it's interesting because I had to be taken to a witch doctor because I went completely yellow.

16:01They call it jaundice. Yeah. When I was at college, I woke up one day and was so sick, like fevered. I remember that this guy was looking at me. He was like, are you okay? And I looked down and my whole skin was yellow. And I phoned my mom and I was like, this thing has happened to me. I don't know what's going on. And a friend of hers said, the person who had cursed your child has died. Oh my God. And that's the last of the curse. It was leaving your sister. How mental is that? Now, I don't know whether any of this shit is too. Take that in your spag bol. When you five-year family move from Guyana to the UK.

16:45Yeah. And you come to live with your mum's brother. Yeah. Who is a housemaster. Yeah. At the boarding school charter house. Yeah, charter house. So you've come from the tropical climes, South America. Dead of winter we arrived. All I remember is being like wrapped up in, because my mother's family is quite upper middle class, gorgeous, amazing human beings. I mean, wrapped up in like fur coats. I love the sort of you in a little fur coat. That's just adorable. Your little head popping out. I know, yeah. And then you, do you remember getting to Charterhouse? I remember again, my aunt, she would do this, I think it was like every Sunday, the head boys would be invited and she would cook for them.

17:28Like 20 people, like a big long table, 20 boys. what was she cooking like i think it would probably have been like a proper roast yeah yeah just casually all the trimmings casually throwing down yeah just a roast for 20 yeah 20 like young young men that are basically just like an unfillable pit so basically food for 40 yeah exactly amazing and my dad would um kind of disappear and we'd always wonder where he was going and then one time at the you know in our stay my aunt was like where are you off to and he was writing songs just writing poetry little folk tunes and stuff and he ended one he ended up writing an album at one point in his life he just take himself off just take himself really busy yeah and just kind of he had his little guitar yeah you then settle in cambridge because of your dad's job yeah just outside cambridge he's a christian missionary yes he started working for USPG, which is the United Society for the Proclamation of the Gospel.

18:30He went out and preached and stuff. How devout was your childhood? Very. Did you believe? To a certain extent, I believe that there is something out there. What that is, is a private thing and a personal thing. My dad was very much multi-faith. He ended up actually being Brixton prison chaplain and being the kind of head of a multi-faith environment. Coming through our house was Christians, Catholics, Hindu, Muslim. I was going to ask you about this, this idea of your family home. Yeah, we used to have these kind of cookouts where people used to bring dishes, different kind of dishes and stuff.

19:17And even like with the church that they ended up finally being up in Brixton, just like amazing food from all walks of life. I used to sit in the corner and just listen to these amazing stories. stories and my dad had this fierce laugh like booming kind of you know that was infectious I think it was a very very unique upbringing

19:54and you get to 16 yeah now a lot of 16 year olds at this point have got it pretty good and they would have stayed there for at least another 10 years when you're 16 you leave your family yeah and you just head off to london yeah to seek your fortune yes like what actually is the plan then is there a plan no no plan the plan goes so far as i've got into drama school okay that's like that's cool okay great i feel this is the london studio center london studio center yeah it's a dance and musical theatre school. Yeah, and that's when, that's the Homerton place where I lived. And I remember having to walk from Hackney Central because I couldn't get to where I was living.

20:39And I used to pretend I was mad. There wasn't even a train or bus route past, I think, 11, 12 o 'clock from Hackney Central. Like, I used to talk to myself.

20:53So I wouldn't get attacked. That was like my first acting lesson, do you know what I mean? People are like, do you know something? She can have a handbag. She can have a handbag. Yeah. And Hackney in the 80s is not... No. Not a lot of sourdough happening. No, there wasn't. Back then, you know. You go to college. Yeah. Your first actual job is a nine-month stint travelling around Europe with Hair. Dream. The musical. Dream. All I know about Hair the Musical was when I was a child, it was always considered a bit raunchy, a bit rude. Nakedness on stage. Get the bits out. Things that maybe shouldn't be jiggling about.

21:43Jiggling. I jiggled. I jiggled all around Europe. How did you tell your very religious family that your first job was getting naked on stage? Did you tell them? Yeah, they came out to see it. Hi, Mum! They came out to see it. My parents were all right. They supported every single thing that I did. My mother would have climbed onto stage with a bath towel.

22:11Grace! Grace, no! Grace, no! Yeah, they travelled all the way. I can't remember where we were, maybe like Rotterdam or somewhere like that. And they traveled with a couple of their mates. Oh, lovely. Yeah. You spent the best part of a year in a tour bus. Yeah. Okay. Snacks and long journeys go together like a horse and cart. Talk to me. What are you eating in the back of this tour bus? Everything that's bad for you. To this day, it is the best snack. Kit Kat. It's the OG of like all of them. peeling back that red paper slicing it down the middle yeah click i do like a bit of a dunk no i don't i don't dunk biscuits because i love biscuits so much i don't like the risk aspect yeah okay yeah it is quite dangerous you are taking your life in your own hands that yeah or the biscuits life in its own hands even your early 20s yes and that is a period of our lives that really shapes us and from what i've heard you were the life and soul of the party tell me about those days tell me about camberwell camberwell and i used to get up to all sorts of mischief there like loads of house parties i lived in a squat in camberwell for a little while the level of squat have you got a flushing toilet yes we did have a flushing toilet did you have to get somebody to climb up the side of the building to throw something through your window to get electricity yes because the squat was very established by the time i'd got there i once lived for a bit in a squat where somebody had been into a laboratory and freed a lot of experimental rats we had the rats oh my oh my i was very young but i'll always remember like holding no the rats like as pets my god graves wow that was that's a cool thing though that they saved them actually.

24:07Free the rats. Oh, we've got too many now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Put them back in. I wasn't there for long. Maybe like six months, eight months, something like that. Sometimes you just want a proper front door. Yeah. In 2022, you receive the Equality Award by the LGBTQ plus advocacy group Human Rights Campaign. These days, you are a bona fide queer icon. someone like you with your personality did you have to come out no my sexuality has always been a celebration of who I am with your background where you were from this is this supported me I'm really really lucky Grace that I had parents that initially when I told them were worried but when I told my brother he was like you want something to eat let's cook let's cook a meal I was like, do you realize what I just told you?

25:04I was like, yeah, mate. Do you remember what you ate? No, I don't. Probably spag bol. And you were out with your job. Were you allowed to be out? Mm-hmm. Yeah. I never hid it. I never, it wasn't something that was necessary for me. You know, there was a moment where I was told to not say anything because it might harm my career. but it just wasn't something that I entertained.

25:43Your career has took off. You're getting lots of roles on stage and screen but in 2012 you've reached this point in your acting career and it just makes you sit back and take stock. What was that? that was a point in my life where I was doing good work I was a jobbing actress successful I was getting the young mum with wayward child the policewoman the doctor the lawyer and that was a constant ticking over of great parts great parts but I wanted something more and I wanted to understand why I wasn't getting more so I took a really big look at myself and at the industry and did a lot of writing journal writing to try and find out what I needed to do to shift into the next bracket the next chapter of my career but were you prepared to change I was prepared to change.

26:50It was kind of a resolution that wayward mum with young child from Deptford or Peckham, the doctor, the policeman, the lawyer, great parts. But I wanted them to be part of the storyline, not out in the peripheral. I understood that the industry saw me. That's my box. I don't mind that. I have no disrespect to a police woman or whatever, but I don't want to go in for one day, two days. I want to be there. It's very different working on a show for one day, two days, and nobody's bothered to learn your name. Yeah, exactly. You don't even have time to learn where anything is, and you're an outsider.

27:34Yeah, I wanted more. So I started to turn down those jobs. I started to say no. And I was out of work for six months, nine months. No more war conductor, coffee shop server. Did you have any money? No. I was living with my mum. My dad had just died, God rest his soul. And I moved in with my mum. I had a house in Camberwell, little one bedroom flat. And I thought, I'm not going to be able to pay this rent. So I'm going to rent it out. And I'm going to move in with my mum. great support my mum we got on pretty well um it's always a test you know i mean daughter mother-daughter relationship but great love love her love her because i was living at home and you know things were sorted out with the flat i was able to kind of be supported in that way and i went out and did my little job and stuff like that in the theater um got other little jobs and just grafted and just hung in there the balls though to basically pick up the phone and go okay i could go in and do this receptionist or whatever it is whatever the role is yeah and i could get a couple of hundred but i'm not doing it not doing it that's you have to teach them those out there that are in control.

28:54You have to teach them what you want. Yeah. And I think that taught the casting directors to look at me in a different way. And then the job started to come. And then, bam, Queen Charlotte happens.

29:15A few years later, you are playing the lead female Othello on stage in Liverpool. Yeah. There is a theme in your life, I think, where you take these bold risks. You move to London by yourself. Yeah. And I think it speaks of this real self-belief. Where do you think that comes from? I think it has to come from my mum and dad and their journey. You know, a biracial couple back in the day when it wasn't acceptable. Like my parents were passionate about learning. so they enrolled in like open university back in the day it was like a big thing and I've always had a passion and a thirst for learning even though I find it so so difficult sometimes you know I've got things in place now like apps and stuff that read me my scripts and but that kind of love of language is there ever a point where you just have a wobble and say to your other half a hundred percent what if I that Queen Charlotte that's probably going to be my last role and I've now I'm typecast and like I'm not 24 anymore and before every single job I have a wobble and you know my missus always like you always do this like you know it's gonna be all right and you know you're gonna be like you know that was an amazing journey that I went through yeah like but I'm human it's part of the joy it's part of the I love to have that Butterflies.