S8, Ep4: Leila Farzad, 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, everybody. My guest is about to arrive. Hang on, am I speaking a bit loud? I'm wearing my noise-cancelling headphones. I do this a lot at the moment. now people under the age of 30 have been going on about this for a while saying how vital they are to their lives and how soothing and safe the silence is and until recently as the old crone that i am i have dismissed it i want to apologize because they were right about noise cancelling headphones i just wear them at all times around the house i think they give out a message, do not bother me. I will be taking them off when my guest Leila Farzad arrives.

1:30I definitely want to hear what she's got to say. Not only is this woman having a moment as queen of Netflix, as she's currently starring in not one, but two shows, Chaos, Go and Binge It, and The Decameron. But this moment is stretching because next year, she's starring in the new Bridget Jones. I'm basically scooping her off the roller coaster she's riding, getting her in here, making her a cuppa and finding out what it is that she's been wolfing down to fuel this frankly meteoric rise. I better get these headphones off. I won't hear when the doorbell rings. Actually, she could have been ringing 10 minutes already.

2:13I won't have heard it in my own little world.

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3:10Leila Farzad, welcome to Comfort Eating. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited. you are in the new Netflix series Chaos. I am. I was lying in bed watching you last night. Don't feel weirded out. Oh, were you? Yeah. I kept stopping every 10 minutes and trying to work out which bits were actual Greek mythology and which bits had been added in because I didn't have a background as a child in Greek mythology. I went to one of those Church of England schools where we really only learned about Robin Hood and tadpoles. Oh, I love that. And Jesus. Tadpoles were so big in the 80s. I don't know if they're as big now as they were back then.

3:54We did a lot on the tadpoles. I feel that you must know a lot more about Greek mythology than me. I am about to test you. Oh, no, please don't, because I actually don't know very much. I've got basic kiddie knowledge. I am about to test you. Buckle up. Everyday life is Greek mythology. you said in an interview, which Greek myth do you find the most relatable? I don't know if it's relatable, but the myth of Icarus flying too close to the sun has always just burrowed into my soul and made me cry repeatedly. So maybe, I don't know, can I see myself making that kind of error or I don't know, that's one of them.

4:35Isn't that such a lovely comparison to fame and chasing fame? Isn't it? Well done, Grace. Isn't it just the idea of Icarus? And he gets told not to do it, but he thinks that's where happiness is. They all come down to it. A lot of them come down to that, don't they? Thinking that you're somehow going to get away with something because you're more powerful than fate or something like that. Is it really stressful, people thinking that you're now an expert on Greek mythology? I think no one has yet to ask me about Greek mythology properly apart from you.

5:16this is the moment i ask all of my guests to reveal their comfort food this is the food that offers solace and joy when the sky is gray the thing that i love about this snack is i don't know what's under this tea towel but i love it when a guest appears with bits of the snack, holding them. And then a huddle begins in the kitchen of producers, because that's when you know that you're getting something good. Leila, please unveil your snack. I've brought you a little Persian snack that I would tuck into when I don't know what to eat. This is lovely Persian bread. I think this is sangak, which is a type of Persian bread.

6:03and what you do generally before you have a big persian meal or if you just want a snack you take a piece of bread i want to make that might be a bit try that one that's a bit crunchy so controlling and then you get a bit of cheese so this is persian feta and this is greek feta you go with whichever you prefer i bought both options i have never um had persian feta and i um isn't that shocking i'm sure it's called persian white cheese i feel the greeks would be like well then it's not feta don't start any international instance on my podcast and then you You tear up a bit of herb and you put it in the bread.

6:36Is this mint? Yeah, that's mint or tarragon, whatever you prefer, both. It's always a selection of herbs. Tarragon, the king of herbs. Oh, good. Tarragon's the king of herbs. It does split the jury. I love it. You hardly ever get it. Yes. It's really difficult to find in supermarkets. It is. And it's often slightly wilted and sad. Yeah. And when you add it to anything, it just lifts it. Basically, just put whatever you want in there. Okay. Some people like the spring onion. There's radish. This is called Sabzi, which you get in a Persian restaurant. What is this? Oh, that's a very sour Persian fruit roll-up that I also bought you.

7:11That doesn't, I mean, I'm not sure you should put it in. So hang on. So the Persian fruit roll-up doesn't go with it, but it's something that you bought as a kind of, do I have a little bit of this? You can have it. I just always snack on it. It's really sour. It's just with salt. They don't put sugar in it. So I think that's barberry and pomegranate. It's just like dried in the sun with some salt. Do you think Persian flavors are salt, sweet, sour? is the sour is the sour important sour is massive we like everything to be sour and salty i think sweet is less important actually what am i doing with this enormous gherkin you could just jump on it no i wouldn't put it in actually don't put it in i just have that on the side so am i i'm i'm folding you're folding i'm folding and then you're biting and i'm biting i've always got this bread in my freezer so i put it in a toaster and then pull out whatever herbs i've got with some feta and roll it up.

8:00I do love white cheese slash veta. It's my comfort. Does this remind you of childhood? It reminds me of, yeah, just my, I suppose when you're from a country that you can't go to and you're in this kind of, you're from this funny like diaspora that lives in London, you all connect with your roots through your food. So your food is your, is very comforting and is about a place that is a nostalgic echo rather than a reality because it's not like you can take yourself there every summer sadly you sound really sad when you say that well it is sad i think it is i think there's a there is a melancholy that goes through the iranians so when we all sit around we take real pride in our food and we love to share our food with people that haven't tried it before and um i get so happy when some you know if i'm sitting next to someone on a job and they're like oh that crunchy rice i love the persian i'm like oh you've tried it because somehow you've you've seen a little window into my life are we talking about the one where Are you like, are you grown up enough to do that by yourself?

8:58I do that a lot. Yeah.

9:05Your parents are Iranian? Yes, they are. When did they leave Iran? Pre-revolution. My mom was raised in New York. My father, my father, I suppose, was raised in Iran, but we're estranged. So I, of course, he is Iranian, but I very much think of my mum's family when I think about my upbringing. So they left before the 1979 revolution. Things have changed a lot. You used to go in the summers, didn't you? Yeah, I used to go in the summers. I went quite a lot, up until the age of about 14. So I do really remember the food and the smells and the quality of the fruit and the produce. And it was just amazing.

9:43What do you wish that people knew about Iran? Well, it's an exquisite country with amazing people and culture and warmth. And it's been overshadowed by its government and the way it runs things and the way it behaves in the world. But when you were a little girl, what was it like then? It was a major culture shock being a little London girl showing up there initially and being kind of thrown together with kids that didn't speak very much English. and but I loved it it's funny to go to a country where everyone looks like you and has your name and you're not different or exotic was the terrible word that we we had in the 80s growing up which is now gone oh it's just delightful it's hard to put it into words and it's a feeling in your in your tummy when you're estranged from this place that you sort of I think I idealize it in my head I think a lot of us do and have a nostalgia think like plum trees cherry trees peach trees the smell of jasmine a real sense of community and yeah obviously my my family my roots my heritage i heard a rumor that you managed to get into trouble with the police at the age of nine in the airport well the airport um in iran is a very tense place because you hope that you will be let in and you hope that you can leave this is i'm talking like the early 90s and i was quite weirdly tall for my age and then obviously it all stopped i don't know what happened yes i know stayed at five for five but at nine I looked older than nine and from nine you'll have you have to wear a headscarf so I remember them saying to my mum hey she looks older than nine put a headscarf on her and that just the terror of that and obviously you know that I have such memories of these women um people trying to leave Iran and take a lot of their jewelry or their possessions to try and get them out and women wearing gloves in front of me and officials saying take your gloves off and them saying no no I'm pious I want to wear them because I'm a pious woman and them removing their gloves and then them having like rings on every finger that they were trying to smuggle out oh god yes and then confiscating it and it just the pain of it the sorrow at that airport it's so tragic what's happened to it as a country and I'm hopefully probably not in my lifetime but I hope at some point things shift a little bit I know your grandma was central to all this.

12:09Tell me a little bit about that. Yes. In the summers watching my granny just prepare like a three course Iranian meal from what seemed to be nothing in the fridge. She was someone who could make something from nothing. I always used to think she should have gone on ready steady cook like a motor just never stopped. Always preparing food, always feeding, always over catering. We I over cater when people come over. I over order when we go for dinner. Like I like there to be bounty and plentiful things to eat and drink. She's taught you that if there's not too much, there's not enough. Yes, there has to be an overload probably.

12:45And also say you don't like this stew, but then there'll be this stew. So there's always a backup. I think it's a nice way to exist to just, it's a language of love, isn't it? Just nurture. What's on the table? What's she cooking? Be cooking Persian stews, Persian rice dishes, dill rice with broad beans and a lamb shank or barberry rice with like kind of roasted chicken in a sauce or you name it she's she can do it yeah no measuring jugs no tablespoons no grams when little leila returned to london you switch from persian rice to our beloved beans on toast i didn't i didn't actually get introduced to like british food for a really long time because my mum made kind of a few iranian dishes and kind of a lot of breaded stuff in the 80s there was a lot of things that were breaded there was she's saying this because she was either all or nothing she was either three days of making preparing a beautiful stew or kiev fish fingers she'll be rolling her eyes but she swung between like really quite complicated we went through like a beef wellington phase we went through um And she had a French friend that taught her how to make quiche.

14:03So there was that. And then there was actually, no, I actually can't be arsed. And then there was a lot of like breaded, like even chicken cordon bleu, which is in retrospect, I don't, I'm not a fan. Because I don't like two animals next to each other. Freaks me out. I know what you mean. I can't eat like a club sandwich. It gives me, panics me. You don't like a club sandwich. You don't like animals next. Because I like the pig and the chicken next to each other. And I don't put bacon in my burger. Does it feel like you're kind of taking the mick as well to the animal? Yeah. I feel like that, if anything, has got chicken and egg.

14:33Oh, it's a top sandwich. I feel like I'm being... It's got chicken, egg and bacon. It's like, oh, here's what you could have worn. There's something a bit. I don't like it. My idea of terror is when people introduce, like, a small chicken inside a turkey inside a goose. At Christmas. No. And they're like, oh, let's all live like Henry VIII. No. Really, like, sicky. No. But I wonder if it's moral in that I don't feel great that I eat animals. And yeah, it is. It's taking the piss if I'm like, oh, let's put a chicken and a chicken baby and a pig in a sandwich with some mayonnaise for me to enjoy with some chips.

15:13This is one of the deepest things anyone's ever said. It's profound. On this podcast, though, because I don't think anyone's ever really thought about that at that level before. What did your mother have against batter? Why was it always breadcrumbs? Oh yeah, good point. Well, she hates deep fat frying in her. She always had a thing about the house smelling. So she wouldn't, and she always wore like crazy scarves when she did anything that was vaguely smelly and still does. So I think, yes, the oven was a good friend. If we had to go to the supermarket together now, go to the Chilakabla and we've got to get a taste of your childhood and it's got to be something that we can make in 22 minutes oh gosh what you're having so not the delicious persian stuff the more basic stuff we don't want anything that's got vitamin in it maybe like oh it'll be a fish cake we used to have this thing called salmon on cruise do you remember that sort of gungy sauce it's kind of green parsley something yeah yeah and she was just tired and you know single parenting and of course and i loved it and i lapped it up and i was fishing there and I probably had that with some salads and whatever on chips on crew was in the 80s and 90s on crew kind of meant it's still in a box and frozen but it's posh it's posh it's got a bit of lattice on it like a voluvant we had we had like voluvals were big for a while with that weird chicken mushroom mark in the middle I absolutely love do you love a voluvant I love a voluva always tightly too hot in the middle yeah like i i think that most parties one of most of your posh media parties could be improved if they got rid of the you know the stupid hollowed out quail's egg and just put gave us a voluva on with a bit of that um chicken supreme that comes in a tin oh my god love it you had it here first media parties, all those posh catering places.

17:14You went to school in London. You were the only non-white girl in your class. Yes, the kind of definitely the darkest. And so I gravitated towards the Italians and the Greeks rather than the Brits. But then I think I went to quite a, it was quite a Henrietta Harriott school. Did you have to wear a hat? Was there a school hat? they're not in my act my the first little school I went to there was a little boater yeah there you go say no more someone in Iran went very very hard and so when we moved across to here there was a brief of like this is the kind of school you send this little person to because I've worked really hard in Iran that's kind of because education is so big for the Middle Easterners but then you end up going to a school where you don't quite belong but you do belong because you you learn very quickly how to adapt um but yeah there was there's a huge class distinction at somewhere like that between the people that have had the money in britain for centuries and centuries and centuries because they're the big families they're the seven big families right and then the little girls like you who've come in from another country and they've still got the money and surely they're not i mean this is my experience with the class system they're still not quite seen as almost like their money's almost not the same.

18:36Totally. The class system is confusing in this country if you come from somewhere else because you are told that you're from all different bits of it but you don't really understand because fundamentally your heritage is in this other country that you can't go back to but you've been raised and gone to a certain school and have a certain accent and education so and privilege of course. I get this we're talking in autumn and I get still get anxious around this time of year thinking that I have to go back to school oh yeah and Sunday blues weirdly I had quite a nice time and at least you know my my friends say I think you've forgotten some of the the really bad bits but I had such good friends and we were in such a small class are these the Italians the Italians yeah and then later are we allowed to name the Italians what started with Margarita and Clara and Margarita was my friend at nine and she and I became friends I was like a funny looking thing with one eyebrow and teeth and a moustache and like my hair my mum used to use a Mason Pearson brush to brush my hair so it was it was big it was like a cloud and understandably and I remember like thinking I was going to maybe be Mary in the play and then the teacher was like no no I was like but actually my mum says that Mary would have looked more like me um you can't argue with that logic yeah That's exactly right.

19:57You are right. Right. But actually, a lovely girl called Arabella got it, genuinely. I don't, honestly. And Harriet was played by Joseph. I mean, Joseph was played by Harriet. Sorry, I'm cutting in because I'm having a panic attack. That idea of thinking that you're going to be Mary. I know. And thinking that life's fair. I know. And thinking that it's a meritocracy. It was not. Thinking that you're going to get to be Mary. and then they divvy out the parts and you're like... I was a bagpiper. Because they were there at the birth of Christ. Follow the star.

20:35I was a bagpiper. I went to Iran that summer and my grandmother got so frustrated by how tangled my hair was that she took me to a very brutal Iranian hairdresser who cut off all my hair. So, Tahir, Grace, I don't know if you know, but my hair is extremely coarse and frizzy. so I came back with like I said a cloud on my head with the teeth the brow the lisp I had quite a bad lisp little tash and I think I think guys I think I'm going to be merry and understandably they said I was quite hard to understand because of my lisp because I spoke like this tell me about uh school lunch it was not nice it was actually kind of disgusting but it was this kind of nondescript meat with a lot of fat on it and then I remember like a whole tin tomato with no seasoning I was like Mrs Savage was the name of our dinner head dinner lady tell me about Mrs Savage's speciality tin tomato she did a tin tomato she did smash how much would I have to pay you right now to eat one singular uh tin tomato I mean I'll do it I'd do it for the novelty value would you eat the smash um yeah I've had my thumb in the smash as long as it's been properly we used to just have pockets of powder so I just remember it little pockets exploding in your mouth and making you gag a bit um her puddings were great I was nourished on puddings I'd never had English pudding right at home so it's what a dick apple crumble treacle tart I mean all just heaven and also we had a tuck shop and to this day I just love like cheap confectionery chocolate yes so much and if I'm stuck on a train station the joy I get just staring at the neatly like the lined up boost and toffee crisp and picnic and what is it about that it's so I feel the same it's a it's a moment of happiness to to see it all the smell of it yeah it's that there's that smell of the it's like something like a toffee crisp or a lion bar delicious but you're from a background where a dessert's not no they're not big yes and my mom likes a sort of higher brow chocolate so there was a lot of dark chocolate that she was hoping that i would get into and to this day i still love smarties and i just yeah i like a very base chocolate i think there's nothing more delicious you know when people say like i couldn't possibly eat a quality street it's not chocolate oh no i'm like no no no i mean there's some quality street that I will forego.

23:05Hang on a minute. This is where we're getting to the actual crux of the matter. Right. How do you feel about the green triangle? I was just going to say the green triangle. That's the best one. Yeah, the fudgy one. Yeah, that's delicious. I would say that this is like the psychopath test that we need to run on actual people. But you know when you pass around a tin of Quality Street and somebody just instantly goes for the toffee penny? Yes. That's when you worry. Yes, you worry.

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24:24I love finding out the gulf between what people's mothers dream for their daughter to do and what they actually do. What did your mother want you to be? I think my mother comes from a place of anxiety and worry with me, so wanted me to do something stable. and I happened to be all right at school and so I think she thought maybe she can go be a lawyer so I think I always say I'm like the you know Amal Clooney's like the I'm like the budget Amal that's the kind of dream like human rights lawyer fabulous always immaculate I think there was just angst you know you say like I'm going to be an actress it's like oh really would you take Amal home to meet your mother do you think that that would how would that really cause trouble because she would go oh she's the kind of person that can wear away she is she's bright and elegant and but is she is she funny i don't know probably maybe yeah you know something the moment we said that that's the sound of amul just putting together a tight 45 minute edinburgh set oh my god it's gonna sell out for about i mean i'd go see that in a second i would go see it it must be awful having sex with him it must just i did actually i did i did meet him recently on a film set and he's he was utterly charming zero predator just like just the most charming like heavenly man so gorgeous yeah we all got slightly giddy god bless them and they're 77 acres at 17 your mother said that you could only go to acting school if you went to oxford first I feel like I know her and I feel like I understand that.

26:11And my mother was exactly the same in so many ways. She used to say, it's not funny and it's not true. And I think, well, it is funny and it's all true. I mean, it is funny, some of it. But I have to say, like, yeah, and caring for her this summer has been like such a kind of a privilege. It's very special. do you ever wonder what would have happened if you hadn't got a spot at oxford i don't wonder but i i would have tried to get myself to drama school earlier i suppose because that was always what i was saying or put on a show or i don't know make some little films for people to see i did always know it was what i wanted to do and i knew it felt really nice to put on someone else's clothes and be someone else you don't get lots and lots of iranian people in the arts that's because it was it's very much affiliated with maybe not it wasn't considered the most noble of choices especially if you're academic like why why wouldn't you go and graft and they still don't see it as we see it sadly i think it's certainly we didn't tell my grandmother we told her i was a nutritionist because we thought it would send her over the edge because it's just the embarrassment of being like she's an actress i mean and don't forget i've done like intimate scenes and done all sorts of things that are not necessarily ideal for your even my sort of 80 something year old uncles i don't think it's but there is pride there now hang on a minute pretending you're a nutritionist yeah how did you keep that going did you just like wear a white coat no when i used to speak to them before we were estranged for the last couple of years we're I used to tell her it was all fine and the antibacterial properties of mushrooms and turmeric and this and that.

28:01She wasn't any the wiser. So I was like, let's not upset her. Just try to eat more vegetables. Just try to eat more vegetables. Yeah. Yeah. I have many clients. You've said you struggled at Oxford. Oh, yeah. It was too hard. It was just too hard for me. um I showed up from a small school big big fish in a small pond and then became a little tiny I don't know like shrimp in an ocean and didn't know how to study wasn't disciplined um was too all over the shop I'm not a very I'm not very good at concentrating and Oxford requires self-discipline and focus and concentration were you trying to concentrate are we just going out and having a good time um both and i think you have to have a word with yourself and say no i won't come out i'm going to study but i mean i didn't do that obviously i'd gone to an all-girls school there were suddenly boys i mean it was very exciting so now i'm imagining just like salt burn and there's just like kind of just gorgeous men hanging around in kind of cricket jumpers over their no i mean i shoulders i didn't really get in with that set i got i found my set the kind of the others you know the kind of my special they're still a lot of my best friends um but yes I I found it cliquey I didn't like the drama set the drama set at uni are the worst though yeah I mean everyone they are the worst I remember going for one audition and it was just like a very extraordinary looking blonde girl telling me that I could play Peace Blossom which I did take her up when I did play Peace Blossom in a really bad production of Mid-Sunglight Stream and then that was it it wasn't it wasn't for me I kept escaping back to London and I think the binge drinking didn't really suit me yeah I just didn't quite couldn't quite get in with it from Oxford you went to the Guildhall School of Music and Drama you'd worked so hard for years just to even be allowed to apply for this stakes are very high when you turn up it was hard but I did I had I did have a nice time I learned I was finally doing the thing I actually wanted to do right learning about the craft I actually wanted to learn about they strip you back and they what they call like the idiosyncrasies that make you you they tell you to get rid of which is quite weird so you're suddenly aware I was suddenly aware of my accent I was suddenly aware that I walk with splay feet it's it's weird but you also do beautiful things like you do mask work where you put on just a white mask and you go into a space and you try and convey emotion without showing your face, which was that kind of thing used to make me cry.

30:42There's a lot of trauma bonding, I'd say, at drama school where you're all standing around in black leotards. I mean, eating disorders are rife at drama school. How do you get through eating? How do you get through drama school without getting an eating disorder? I just needed the food to get me through. I've gone to shoots for things where I've shown up and they've gone, why don't the trousers fit? And I said, well, because they're a size eight and I'm a size 10 trouser and they've gone, but, and there's this terrible silence in the room where I'm like, do you want me to try and squeeze myself into those?

31:16Or shall we think of a plan B? We grew up in like skinny heroin chic where there was no space for boobs and hips and curves and everybody's just smoked loads of fags. And I remember we'd all just like have one coffee and just smoke and try and stave off the absolute terrible hunger pangs and then go home I'd go home and stuff myself I don't know if they if any of the rest of them did and then the advent of actually Shakira and Jaila were very helpful for me but I think um Latin was very helpful for me obviously pre-Kardashian and all that my my very first agent when I went to go see him he said um you're a bit you're a bit on the bit on the round side or something like that you should go to the gym I'm very good friends with an actress who doesn't even eat roast potatoes I won't name the actress who doesn't even eat roast potatoes on Christmas day that's the level of discipline she has and that's what you need to have so you need to go and lose weight and at the time I was just mortified and strolled down Piccadilly crying and probably went into the Marks and Spencers and bought myself some Percy pigs

32:31you left acting school yes how did you make your way in your early stages of your acting career how did i make my way i didn't i didn't i um i the doors just wouldn't open very few people would see me uh i was very bad at auditions i didn't prep properly uh nerves were a real problem still are um so yes I had a very long period of just doing little teeny tiny things and never quite getting traction and you know all my peers just you know doing incredibly well which was a friend and the person that comes in and I'm talking about roles here are we talking about tiny little oh no no no like the doctor that goes shall I give the notes to the other doctor that was actually that was shall I how often I'll give the notes to Dr.

33:15Reeve that was one of the first one. My mum actually recorded it and watched it. Bless her. I'm going to be in this tonight. I went to the Guild Hall. I went to the Guild Hall. Yeah. I mean, that's unfortunately the story of so many actors. There's a bottleneck situation, so it's not merit-based. 2010 to 2017. So these tough years. Audition after audition. Not even that many auditions, Grace. That was sort of sad. Audition. Audition. Long break. A lot of tutoring. A lot of tutoring. and then another audition. I remember auditioning for Thousand and One Nights and being like, if I can't get this to play in a thousand, and I didn't get it.

33:53And I was like, okay, well, I mean, I might as well just give up. Yeah. And a Persian role actually at the Almeida, an Iranian part where they were like, yeah, they've given it to the other actress. I was like, but she's not even, she's not even, what? So you think, okay, you're thinking, gosh, this is literally the right shaped hole. Like this is putting, and it still won't. It's not, it's not happening. If you come out of a thousand and one nights and they actually, they genuinely need a thousand and one nights and you're still not making the list. What is wrong? You're walking down Dean Street and there's, what are you going to go and get to eat?

34:30When I do a very sad audition, I always go to Pret and I get a sort of sad egg sandwich that's been sitting there since the morning. I just let it disintegrate in my sad little dry mouth and slurp some like pseudo healthy drink, like a pomegranate seltzer or something. Peach tea. Yeah, I love the green peach tea. And I reflect on my choices and probably call my agent and go, yeah, it wasn't great. So yeah, that Pret egg sandwich has got me through. I mean, Pret is a weird, yes, I have a weird relationship with Pret. I mean, that's a whole other podcast. You should just do a Pret podcast. I feel like everyone has a story or thought about Pratt.

35:09Do you remember when it started? Yeah, it was very, very chic. Wasn't it? St. Martin's Lane. It's very chic. I literally felt like I was a carryout of Sex and the City. Look at me. Look at me just eating a pan au raisin. I remember that being like, oh, I'm going to have a little raisin Danish. I was having an artisan cheese sandwich in the middle of the day. Yeah. On my stainless steel bench. You did one very big gig during this time. You were the voice, you know what I'm going to say? Of Mummy Cat. Mummy Cat. And Mummy Dog. In Peppa Pig. I was, yeah. Yeah. Peppa Pig. Now for the uninitiated, it's one of the biggest kids animation brands out there.

35:56400 TV episodes distributed in over 180 countries. It is a global success that's won a bunch of BAFTAs and animation awards. Okay, tell me about this. Yes, I didn't even, I didn't, yeah, didn't even know what it was. Just met a lovely actor who's actually recently just died, who played Grandpa Pig, David Graham, on a bench doing a corporate job. And he said, I'm doing this cartoon and they're looking for more voices. Why don't you write to them? And I got them, they said, why don't you do these two voices? But I didn't know what it was. I didn't have any idea it would explode. I would feel very remiss if I didn't get you to do the voice.