S7, Ep5: David Harewood, 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 cobble together when you're 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.

0:47Hello friends. You find me, Bent Double, at the dishwasher.

0:55I'm unloading the clean breakfast dishes and loading in the lunch clutter preparing for my very exciting comfort eating guest I'm going to guess that the rather haphazard way that I'm going about this would raise the odd eyebrow from certain sections of society or rather members of my household. The forks and knives are jumbled up. The glasses and cups, well, they're all muddled up too. And no, I have not rinsed anything. The conflict that comes from different loading styles of me and my man can be quite fiery because there are people who load the dishwasher 16 times a week, perhaps haphazardly, versus the people who do it maybe once a month, but are loading it as if they're trying to pass a national dishwasher loading exam.

1:52My point is, while some people are pontificating over where knives and forks go, others are just getting it done. My lesson is, and I genuinely mean this from the heart, sometimes you have to be a bit brass necked about ignoring perfectionists because if it wasn't for little old slapdash me we'd all be drinking out of shoes can you tell this grinds my gears leave it grace leave it my guest today now he is a man who gets stuff done he has had a monster career in stage and screen so far a man who has starred opposite Leonardo DiCaprio, Hugh Laurie, Claire Danes, Damian Lewis. He is, of course, David Harewood, president of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art now, no less, where his own career started over 40 years ago.

2:51As well as being an immensely successful actor, Harewood is mental health ambassador and he was nominated for a BAFTA for his documentary Psychosis and Me. He'll be here in a minute. I better get these mugs in. Also I am absolutely starving. I hope he's brought me something delicious to eat. I bet he rinses his bowls before putting them in the dishwasher.

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4:02David Hurwood, welcome to Comfort Eating. Thank you very much. I'm honoured, should I say honoured, to be here. I've heard something about you. I've heard that you have a dog. I do, Sebby. It's a Cavapoo. Yes. Hang on, just for our listeners, what is that a combination of? King Charles Cavalier and a poodle. So two completely mad dogs. Too mad dog. But he's not mad. He's so sweet. And he's like a teddy bear. Have you made any other dog walking friends when you've been out with Sebi? I have, yeah. You know when you go to Italy or you go to... One of the things I love about Italy is community. And people say, yeah, buongiorno.

4:40Good morning. Good evening. Buonasera. People are always sort of... We don't do that in this country. Only dog walkers say, good morning. How are you? I just engage each other. And I love that. I love the fact that, you know, you can just sort of stumble upon somebody who you've walked past for the last six months. And then you just as a quick nod and a chat and catch up on things and then off you go. So that's just a call out to anyone at all in Britain with a dog. Always say hello to David. He loves it. When I'm with the dog. Every week I ask my guests to bring me their comfort food. Quite genuinely.

5:17I don't know what's under this slightly grueled tea towel. I can smell it. It's on the count of three. Should we actually... Are we doing it together? Yeah, let's go. One, two, three. Boom, look at that. Please, what I'd like you to do is explain exactly what it is whilst I just drool and look at it and just, I'm picking it up. This is shepherd's pie. Now, I'm a bit of a... I know, I'm not fancying me. so it's not going to be anything caught on just a bit of shepherds I love that you said it was a bit of shepherds like you genuinely think the mince is shepherd I don't know why is it called shepherd's pie by the way because shepherd used to eat it I'm going to guess because it was originally made with usually lamb and so it was a shepherd's pie because it was always mutton oh right it just makes me feel at home because my wife makes a wonderful shepherd's pie and nobody eats it.

6:17So my girls play around with it. My wife doesn't like it. So I end up eating the whole thing over the course of about four days. And I just love it. It just makes me feel wonderful, completely at home. I love that when you're faced with a full Pyrex dish of shepherd's pie, you think I couldn't eat all that. But yet there you are. And it improves. It matures. Exactly, it matures. It matures. It matures. My wife will put peas in this as well, and carrots. So it's got everything. It's got a bit of veg in it, the meat, which you can do a bolognese with mints, and that's Italian. My best friend is Italian, so I grew up eating a lot of Italian food.

7:01So it's got sort of culture. It's got kind of Britishness. It's got the potatoes. So it all kind of combines into one sort of gorgeous, healthy meal. You have had a very strong 40 year acting career You've treaded the boards You've been streamed You've been binged You've been watched on the big screen You've been streamed and binged You've been watched on the big screen Most recently you were in a film called Arthur's Whiskey Now this film is about three friends Who discover an anti-aging elixir I'm not going to put too fine a point on it You've clearly been taking Yourself I'm 60 next year I was, well, I'm glad that you brought it up.

7:46Yeah, 60 years old. It doesn't really compute. On one level, I don't want to do anything as shallow as to bring in somebody as talented as you and talk about a beauty routine. But on the other hand, I just want to get you by the shoulders and go, how have you done this? You look incredible. Well, obviously the good thing is in our game, you do have to, you've got to stay fit and healthy. Yeah. And I go to the gym regularly. I train regularly. And I moisturise. Babes, I've done step aerobics. I've done step aerobics, right? You look 35. There's something happening. I have no idea. It's great. You're telling me that it's a lot of boiled, it's a lot of chicken.

8:30You've eaten a lot of chicken. Unfortunately, yes. I'm just more confident when I'm healthy and fit. So when you're, like I've just done this film in Canada and then this straight away I did a TV show. So for six months I've basically been eating healthy, exercising and looking after myself, but I'm exhausted. Exactly. That sounds exhausting. I was really hoping that you were just going to say, I've got this cream and I'm going to give it to you. Or just a Zen pick.

9:05Are you a birthday cake person? I'm not great with birthdays. My birthday. I think I threw a 16th party. And I can't remember what happened, but no one turned up. And from that moment, I sort of went, I'm not going to tell anybody about my birthday. Some people love their birthdays and they go the whole way, invite lots of friends, parties, go out for meals. They have a birthday week. Exactly. I think I'm going to get around to that. I think 60 is going to be a big one for me. And then I'm going to start, probably then I'll start celebrating my birthday Because each year is closer to, you know, the edge of the cliff, isn't it?

9:40Oh, Dom. Not for me. Maybe for others. My plan is to live forever. Good. You're looking well. You're looking very well. You grew up with your parents and your three siblings in a part of Birmingham called Small Heath. Small Heath. It's the 1970s. What is the community around you like in Small Heath, young boy, growing up? Well, it wasn't great, I have to be honest with you. I mean, it was great in terms of my friends. I had some great friends. You know, I was very sporty as a kid and we played a lot of football and we were always out after school. We were always laughing and playing around and there was lots of sports.

10:24But I grew up at a time in the 70s where being black was really tough. And, you know, you could be randomly chased out of the blue, find yourself attacked by teddy boys or skinheads or you know walking past the pub you get abused or shouted at and you know that's bloody terrifying for a kid exactly for kids for as a young boy it was kind of terrifying and then you'd go home and you'd you know alfgan it was on the telly and calling people sambo and wogs and coons and when i heard canned laughter after he called somebody a I didn't hear that on the street and it was a very different experience when somebody called me that on the street.

11:05It was quite frightening. So it was so jarring for me because I would say that's not the reality. Why is everybody laughing? Because when I'm on the street and somebody calls me that, it's terrifying. So it was a very challenging, growing up was very challenging. And I think that was borne out very much in the food. I was going to say was was Birmingham the first place that your mum and dad went they came from Barbados yeah came from Barbados my mother first went to Hitchin just outside London I know Hitchin and then my parents met and they moved to Birmingham I'm always fascinated what it must be like for people when they're arriving from this country and it's full of this you know the heat and the colour and the culinary variety and then you come to Britain and especially in the 70s, like salt, you know that white pepper that you used to get in a canister in the 70s, that was about as much spice as we'd ever seen in Carlisle.

12:08My father used to be very glamorous and exotic, so he would get the white pepper, put it on stuff, and then just sneeze and sneeze and sneeze. But I always think people like your parents, they must have got here and sort of like, where's the flavour? What on earth is happening here? Could they recreate it? Did they recreate it? Yeah, yes. And I remember my mum cooking some wonderful... I wish I'd have paid more attention to my mum's culinary skills because she would always magic up these wonderful West Indian dishes, which we didn't always want to eat, I have to say, because we were English. What did she cook?

12:45And what did you want? Always rice and peas, which was so flavourful. you know nice spicy chicken and lamb and beef and curries and i mean they were always wonderful but at the same time we would also say mom can we also have sauces and chips and like you know we'd come back from football and all my mates would sort of get used to sort of coming back to mine and mom would immediately make a massive pile of chips and we'd all just tuck in after the game and so my house was a bit of a community center back in those days and she really enjoyed cooking for other people so i love that because there's always one house where people end up going because there's always a bit of extra food on the ground yeah but your mom is a caterer that's right so she would cook she would go she i think she cooked at a police station one time she cooked at a school she's basically she'd be either a cook or a cleaner and sometimes do both at the same time she'd cook in the mornings and then clean in the afternoons extraordinary work ethic you know you know the people had four kids and you know i've got two kids and you know can you imagine what it was like having four my dad was a long distance lorry driver he would go off and come back at all hours and she would kind of yeah you know she'd make sure that there's food on the table when we came home from school and when he came back from his trip did you ever get in the lorry oh god yes summer holidays would be i think called the bread run which was this long trip down to devon with a with a trailer full of bread which some of which would fall off the back of it you know or some biscuits would turn up or you know pop would turn up that's where i sort of got my imagination from was staring out that window just imagining you know things happening in the countryside or imagining scenarios where we're on the run or stuff and I and my father wasn't really a talker he was quite a quiet man so there wasn't really much talking going on

14:50your parents separate when you're a teenager how are you cooking and fending for yourself then who's is a are you cooking or it was really quite traumatic when because my father had a breakdown and when he came back and they they divorced soon after it just wasn't the same house because my mum moved out with my sister and us boys kind of stayed together and dad would cook but it was never quite like my mum's cooking does yeah could he cook he could you know he could throw something together but it wasn't my mum's my mum was she was a sort of home chef and so Saturday mornings was always about big English breakfast and you know the sausages the bacon the eggs the black pudding the tomatoes she'd have everything and that's not what my dad was like you know, there's a couple of sausages.

15:40So it wasn't quite as, it wasn't quite the same. I started to learn how to do the odd thing. And my mum was also, she would bake. So she would always bake cakes. And I remember as a kid, you know, the mixture that's in the bowl. Absolutely. I'd just run my finger all the way on the mixture of the bowl. And that was my thing. And I really missed that. I really missed, I obviously missed my mother, but I missed her presence. I missed her presence, particularly through the food. Did it make you a tight unit or did it make you closer? Well, again, we were sort of all in different places. My brothers were a little bit older than me and, you know, they were into disco.

16:23It was disco. They were always out on ice skating and, you know, bringing back the girls. And, you know, I was still at school. So I'd sort of stare out the window and watch them sort of wander up the road with their cool mates and their leather clothing. So you're in the house. Your dad has not cooked anything interesting that night. Is there a chip shop? There's a fantastic chip shop called Beddard's. And they did fabulous chips because we were always playing sports. Yeah. After school, rather than go home and eat, you would eat after the game. And that would be in the chip shop. I love a steak and kidney pie.

17:00I love a chicken and mushroom pie. In fact, chicken and mushroom pie is probably my favourite pie. So I would always eat pie and chips before I went home. Is this what comfort eating is all about? Yes. Because I'm talking about the stuff that really makes me feel good. Thank you for saying that. Thank you. That is exactly, that's exactly what the show's about. Which I can't eat anymore.

17:33tell me a little bit about school uh fantastic school dinners i loved school dinners they were my favorite you never knew what you're going to get you could smell it when you got close even better was the desserts now that's where my love of custard school custard you cannot beat school custard lumpy school custard it's it's um it's been made it's been put into a jug and then they've tried to put some kind of cling film over it to try and stop it forming a skin but that hasn't worked never worked but i my favorite was apple pie yes or bread and butter pudding bread and butter pudding and custard there's just that's got to be my ultimate my ultimate in fact i used to cook it when i was a student speaking to you someone that has to basically keep yourself in such good nick.

18:33Yeah. And speaking to you about things like bread and butter pudding. I see. It's like speaking to a man who's actually in prison. I'm like, what would you like when you get out? That's exactly what it feels like. And I'm on the cusp now, because I've been working straight discipline for six months, training three times a week, running, sweating, lifting weights. And I've just finished my job. and when I finish a gig, I am straight on the pies, straight on the booze. I will quite happily, when I leave this place, I've just seen half a dozen restaurants down there, I want to go down and tuck into a big plate of chips and pie and several pints of lager.

19:14When you're a pupil at school, it's interesting, you've got these older siblings and they're kind of cool. They've got to that point where they're going out and fashion and everything. But what are you? Are you a little bit like that at school? What clique are you in at school? I'm in the sport clique and I'm also in the mess about clique. I'm a bit of a clown and as you can see, but that's how I got into acting was just being a complete clown. And I was never sort of put up into the kind of clever classes because I was too disruptive. Give us an example of the kind of thing that you did at school.

19:50When the teacher turned around to sort of write on the board, he was constantly throwing at the board and then he turned around and go who did that and we'd all be going no ideas no idea and then we had this other thing which was so i mean again bonkers was to see if we could pull our trousers down so it'd be like a row of kids with their trousers around their ankles just going yes sir as the teacher taught the class and we'd try and get as many kids to take their trousers down as possible. And then there was one time when I, when he turned around to write on the board, I jumped up on the windowsill, drew the curtain, and I spent the entire class hiding on the windowsill behind this curtain, making animal noises.

20:40I just used to love entertaining people around me. If ever there was a school play, I'd put my hand up and say, I want to do that. and I had this knack for sort of improvising. So I didn't need rehearsals or anything like that. They'd just say, then David will do his thing and I'd just sort of make up city voices and characters and just do something on the spot. And yeah, it was just fun. It was an escape for me. When you were encouraged to try and pursue acting, was there a plan B? There wasn't even a plan A. I remember I was a couple of weeks away from leaving and all my mates, one of them was going to be a policeman, didn't want to do that.

21:18A couple of them were going to university, didn't want to do that. I hated it. I wasn't very good at school. I didn't get it. And I remember Mr. Reader called me up and he, you know, I went to see him. It was after school one day and he said, what are you going to do when you leave? And I said, I don't know, sir. I have no idea. He said, well, look, we've been talking in the staff room and we all think you should be an actor. Massive light bulb moment. Literally eureka moment. I went, I can do that. I can do that. And within three weeks, I was auditioning for the Birmingham Youth Theatre, got rejected.

21:52A week after that, auditioned for the National Youth Theatre, got accepted. Went down to London, had six weeks in London with other young people who were actors, wanted to be actors. And I found my tribe. That was it. I thought, these are the people I want to spend the rest of my life with. Because they were funny like me. They could mess around like me. They could improvise like me. and I just loved it when I got invited back. And in that second year, the director said, you should go to drama school. So I auditioned for drama schools and got into RADA.

22:38Now, from the age of 13, I had a game plan, definitely. I was leaving Carlisle, heading to the capital to get a job. So you've come from Birmingham, small Heath, small place, and you arrive in 80s London to go to RADA. Please tell me that you had a really, really good time when you got here. I loved it. I loved the busyness of the city, the fast, the dirt. Do you remember when Soho in the 80s? It was filthy, but it was exciting. It was exciting. There's a dildo sticking in my face. why has that woman got no clothes on i loved it i loved it i thought it was such an exciting nothing like that in birmingham yeah so i and i love the pace of the city and just how how nuts it was um where you live in we lived in hendon which is what when you get to london when you're young you want to live in the most central parts and then you realize how much that is money it is yeah and then you end up living in these places like west we'd lived in west hamstead lived in muswell hill we lived in stratford at one point and lived in just just always house shares house shares and flats and staying on people's sofas and girlfriend's sofas and bunking down with you you know with your other girlfriend and sort of just making your way and in fact i have to apologize to the owners of 7-Eleven because we literally used to steal our dinner yeah so we'd literally just go down and the bottles of wine you know pies sausages bread beans eggs everything anything we want oh my god and i bet that the man that owned it thought such lovely boys do you know what i remember one day we went we we walked out and i remember him saying he said that's about 60 ,000 pounds.

24:33He said something as if he'd known it was going on. And I felt a little bit sheepish and sort of waddled out, but he must have just let us get away with it because we were skint students. What did you do on a night? Where did you go? What around this time trying to work on? Did you go into Soho to party or did you? There was a pub called the Marlborough Arms, which many people who know RADA will know. And that used to be our hangout after school so we'd go there and drink enormous amounts of alcohol but the owners of the bar loved us really loved us and thought we were very entertaining i mean you couldn't help but be entertaining like rada drama exactly like drama students who are always messing around always bursting into song improvising in the middle of the pub and he took a shine to us and we'd end up staying there so that was our if we got we came too late we were too pissed he'd just say crash out on the sofa so sometimes that's what we did we just wake up on the sofa and go straight to drama school just the bounce back ability that you have there pints and pints yeah and then there was that there was the ucl was around the corner yeah and they would have pound of pint nights on a thursday so and just great great music great dancing and great So we'd go there on a Thursday, get slaughtered, dance until we sweat, sweat pouring off you.

26:01What are you dancing to? I remember Blue Monday. There was Sledgehammer by Peter Gabriel, which we knew every single word to. I was just crazy. I had such a great time. I really, really loved it. I loved it. I loved it. You talked about not having a lot of money at RADA for food. And I've been so excited to meet you because I've got, I really want to talk about something incredibly important to British society. And that is corned beef.

26:34Corned beef. Corned beef hash. Very underrated. It really is. I don't think they still do it. They probably still do. My mum would make a wonderful thing with corned beef. Corned beef and rice was like, oh yeah, I'm having some of that. Did you ever steal corned beef? Because it's quite a square tin. It's quite a square tin. I don't know where you put it. I'd probably shove that under the armpit. That would be an armpit job. And then sort of walk out like that. It was the fact that it had a key to get in it. You had to do the key. Wind it up like that. I was trying to explain it to a young person the other day and I realised I don't know what's in it.

27:06I don't know what's in it. What makes the beef calmed? That's very true. I hadn't even thought about that. And what kind of beef, what cut of beef exactly is this? And exactly what is it in that shape? And what's that jelly stuff around it? What is it? Do you remember the jelly stuff around it? Yeah, it had like a kind of a sick, like a jelly that kind of clung like a fungus.

27:29And we'd eat that. It was delicious. It was delicious. Absolutely delicious. When my mum cooked it, she'd put some onions in it, some tomatoes, a bit of seasoning. Oh, it was lovely. Potatoes, just like kind of just stew it down, salt and pepper. Delicious. In 1987, you graduate. Yeah. Is there a final celebration meal or something like that together? Yes, there was. We all went to Ketna's in Soho. It's still there. Yeah, I know. I'd like to think that it's more sedate in Ketna's these days. It's a really weird time when you leave your arm school because some of your mates have got agents and some haven't.

28:09And, you know, the business is starting to creep in then. It's a really awkward time because you're not cocooned in this little safe environment anymore. You've all been friends. Yeah. It's all been very nice. But now. You're competitors. And then everybody kind of said, oh, yeah, you'll be all right. You'll be fine. But I think that was because I was this entertaining sort of clownish. And then, as you say, I came out and played all these serious or did all these serious stuff, which was not part of the plan. I thought I was going to mainly be a clown or a comedian or comedic stuff. It just didn't happen.

28:45I just became this very serious dude. And then particularly with Estes in Homeland, he was really serious.

28:58After 20 years of hard work during which there's been high points and very, very low points, including your beautifully documented mental health struggle for which you were nominated for a BAFTA one day you meet the woman who becomes your wife Kirsty how did that happen oh uh well um back in the day when you meet people in nightclubs remember those days I don't know in the days when you meet people in nightclubs I remember remember browns oh my god it was the place to be what year is this this would be early 90s maybe early 90s it was great and then and you remember there was the red rooms upstairs which was really exclusive you had to know someone to know something to know somebody to get in and then you had so this is a vip room at the top of browns and then so you get through that vip room and then there'd be another layer of VIP room and then you'd get through the other layer of VIP room and inevitably it would just be like you and Mick Hucknell.