NAOMI ACKIE: Why We Need to Celebrate Our Successes | GREAT MOMENTS

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2:04Hello everyone, I'm Jamie Lang and this is Great Moments. Hey everyone, I hope you're well and welcome back to Great Moments. Now if you're new here, this is the place where I'm going to bring you a standout moment from one of my favourite great company conversations. These are the moments that have stayed with me long after the recording, and I hope you can take something away from them. Now, if today's conversation leaves you wanting more, you can find the link to the full episode in the show notes. So sit back, settle in, and here it is. Are you still big into your fantasy books? I'm getting back into it.

2:39Really? I'm trying to force myself to read how I used to read, because I stopped reading for a while. You used to read a book a week? Yeah. I was just absorbing so much, like, amazing stories. And then social media came into my life and that, that kind of F'd it. The joy of a book, like the joy I would get from reading a good book. I still, I don't even, it's a very separate joy to watching a good film. It's a very different feeling. It's so, it's so personal. Like it's such a personal journey. And I was never a big reader. And then actually I, I sort of challenged myself last year to start reading.

3:19So now I read more books. and what I didn't realise right about books yeah okay this is maybe TMI yeah like when you watch a movie and there's like a romantic like an erotic scene in the movie yeah yeah yeah you just you watch it in a book crazy holy shit have you heard of Akata what the sexy fairy book no what is this oh mate what's Akata do you know these mate a court of what's she doing A Court of Thorns and Roses. Okay. It's a series of books. And, you know, these all start the same. She's just a girl, right? With that little... She's just a girl. Okay, she's an innocent, sweet girl, right?

4:00She's an innocent, sweet girl. She just knows how to use a bow and arrow out of nowhere. She gets kidnapped. Wow. Hot guy kidnapped her. You're going to stay in my house. But now I love you. Now we're going to have sex. No. This is all in the book. Yeah, this is in the book. and now you've got magic powers too and now you've got to save the whole world that's essentially what these books are it's unbelievable but there is a lot of the slow burn beautiful passages of really intimate things do you know what this is what I've worked out this is what I've worked out right yeah okay I sort of let's go TMI whatever yeah yeah what I realised like with with sex and things like that right I always would think like Just get in there.

4:48Get it on. See it. Right, let's go. That's what I thought. Now I've read erotic fiction a little bit. Yeah. Oh, no. No, you've got to take your time. It's a lot slower. Yeah, take your time. Take your time. Take your time. Weeks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Start on Monday. It's just start on Monday. You may get it Sunday. Yeah. There we go. It's a look. It's the heavy breathing. It's the storyline. It's the storyline. It's the stakes. Okay. It's the location. This is too much. For ACOTA, I suggested it to my agents who then all read it. They were like, oh my God, I love it. Like, I think it's just done something, it's the same, I guess, as heated rivalry.

5:31Like, it's just awoken something in women. That's awoken something in my mum. Honestly, who's 71. And she's like, she can't get enough heated rivalry. I need to watch it. Yeah, she's like, I don't know what my mum is doing in her house. You don't need to worry about that I don't think about that Just got Instagram back Well I've had it I've always had it But then I took it off my phone So that I wouldn't be sad Yeah yeah yeah That's actually It's actually the best description It makes me sad But then I put it back on Because Work Yeah And also like Trying to figure out How to like Be I don't know because I'm just an actor so it's just like what what kind of I feel like the work it does the thing but now we're in a space where the work doesn't just do the thing I'm old-fashioned I didn't realize how old-fashioned I was in terms of my approach to the work until like maybe the last five years probably from like when I did Whitney I was like I don't want this I don't want the i don't want to conjure up this like excitement about myself i want to conjure up excitement about the story um but that's just not the reality of the the world we live in so it's kind of and if i don't do it or don't try to do it i i don't know you you can face situations where you're not um you're missing out on opportunities potentially from not playing the game that is really interesting because what you're kind of saying there is movies are these kind of beautiful things that we love.

7:14And as a consumer, it's like you get to go to the cinema, but we also forget it's a business. And you kind of forget how much money goes into these things and the way people see it is through marketing. And so what you're saying is that you kind of just want to act. I just want to act. You just want to act. I just, that's all I want to do. You don't want to have to be this marketing platform as well. I don't, don't. And it feels like then it's like you're selling a personality look the thing is it's like i'm hired to do a job where i play a character that's awesome but then it feels like not being hired and actually paying because when you do promotion for a job you're paying your publicist to put you out there so i'm paying to another character because that's not me do you know what i mean yeah i never thought of it i'm I'm just like, what's this about?

8:00Yeah. It's expensive. It's expensive. I shouldn't say that, but like it is. It's expensive. And it also like, I always get this thing. I'm better at it now. But like going to an event or a red carpet and you put on all the clothes and the makeup and stuff and like all the people and the adrenaline is awesome in the moment. But then you always go back home and then you're just you again. And then you're like, what was that? Yeah. And it's not real, but it is real. But it was real for a second. Are you introverted or extroverted? Introverted. You're introverted? Yeah, deeply. It's a problem. I've got to retroverse it at some point in my life.

8:44So going to those red carpets and do those awards, that's a tricky one. My boyfriend, like the amount of times I've been in the car, I've been like, I can't do it. I don't want to go. I don't want to go. I'm sweating from my pits. I'm like, it stirs something in me that is so uncomfortable with being looked at. I get this thing where I try ahead of going to a space where there's a lot of people, where there's a lot of variables, planning out what I'm going to say to everyone, just in case I run out of conversation. and I if there's too many people then there's too many things to try and control I'm a control freak but it's about anxiety really and so I would he was asking me on the way because I was like I'm just feeling that like rush of adrenaline I'm getting shivery I'm like I had to do a lot of deep breathing and stuff to calm down before entering that space and he was like well it's weird because then you're not like that on set and I was like yeah because I know what's expected of me.

9:53I know when I step on a set, you know, six o 'clock in the morning, I sit in the chair, I get my makeup done. I get put my costume on. Then I sit around in a trailer. Then they go, right, nay, go and do the lines thing. Do the acting thing you do. I do the thing. And then I go back. And it's, it's very simple. Whereas like people outside of work are more complicated and there's more things to read and there's more subtext. And I just don't. But also in that situation where you're sitting in a trailer and you're doing that, you're fully prepared. Yes, that's actually a good point. And you're a perfectionist, right?

10:28So you go into your, whenever you go onto a movie set, you know exactly who you're playing. You know the lines, you know everything about it. So there's no surprises for you. No surprises. And I cannot stand surprises. I read the last page of books. Get out of here. I'm not joking you. Why? I love a spoiler. oh I love a spoiler so you would read the last page of a book yeah just to know where it goes I don't mind knowing the end because I quite like how it gets to the end okay that's kind of that's kind of it's kind of upsetting I know I know I know because I just can't take like every time I watch a TV show or something and something goes wrong it causes my body I'm like I can't even if I know it's not real I just can't take it it just the tension is too much so I need to skip it or I need to know what happens but for if we were going to get deep for a second where do you think the fact that you don't like surprises that you want to know the ending that you want to read the last page of the book where do you think that comes from it's a deep fear no it's true it's a deep fear of the unknown you know even as an example I decided I wanted to be an actress at age 11.

11:51I was like, this is the thing I'm going to do. I remember like trying to strategize at 11 to like 17, trying to figure out how I was going to do it. I like to have things in place because of security. And I think ultimately growing up, it wasn't, I love my family and they're amazing, but it wasn't necessarily it. I didn't feel secure all the time in that space are the big personalities conflicts you know that I was the quiet one I was the youngest I was the kind of quiet um I don't want to say good child because we were both good children that I have an older sister she was more dominant yeah yeah and she's seven years older than me and there was things going on in her life and in my parents lives and they were healing through their stuff and it wasn't neat and I really don't blame them for that but as a child I watched a lot of those things happen in real time and can I ask what was going on yeah I mean a lot I think my mum and dad were like deeply in love deeply my mum passed when I was 22 but they were deeply in love but also growing pains and also just healing from their own stuff.

13:07Um, and the same with my sister and the same with me in a way, it just happened later on in life. And I think it calls for a lot of attention to be, um, aimed at each other because they were all older. And for me, I just went very quiet. And the lesson I learned was like, be small, be good. Um, and I just started to hyper-focus on this acting thing that obviously has paid off. But that thing of like find security, find safe spots means that when I don't know what's going to go on, there was actually too many things available. This is too dangerous to think, oh my gosh, the whole world is open to you.

13:50You have so many options. I'm just like a pick one and stick at it for a very, very long time. But funnily enough, when I'm acting, I don't actually prep a No. Do you not? I'm a winger. Because you're that good. Really? The realization came of like, I was scared, but I did it anyway. And like a lot of my life, I have been scared. I'm a fearful person by nature. I don't know why. I think it's, I'm starting to think about, there's this word epigenetics or something. It's like the, how past trauma down the line. It has affected you. Yeah. It's just in my body. And I've always attributed that fear to being, the feeling of fear to being weak, to being vulnerable in my life and being like, God, I'm just always so scared.

14:43I'm always so scared. I'm so sick of that. And like, why can't I be brave? Why can't I be brave? And then the realization came off like, yeah, but I do things anyway. Like I'm terrified of crowds. I, I work in a space that's usually housing at least 300 hundred people. Like I'm terrified of people. I've managed to be in a really healthy relationship. I like, and then suddenly I was like, yeah, I'm scared, but I'm doing things anyway. I'm fucking brave. I'm the bravest person I know. I'm really fucking brave. And it hasn't stopped the fear. I'm still a fearful person, but there's an appreciation that also I do things anyway.

15:23And that felt really like a solid thing to me. Like I saw this, um, quote recently that was like, if you're, if you're saying that you're self-aware, but you're only labeling the negative things, you're branding yourself with like just all the things that you don't like about yourself. And it's so important to start finding out the things that make you, um, not a good person, because good is such a blah blah word like a fleshed out human being i spent a lot of time being like right i've got to fix myself you know what's the wrong things and take them off the list and it's like no but what are the good things what are the good things focusing on the good things yeah that is such a good point because i think we do that the whole time we're so hard on hard mate and we don't look at the stuff we've actually done and completed and achieved we think we haven't achieved that we always look up yeah rather than we look at like what we're doing here will look behind us, right?

16:15And see what we've done. That is, and also I think you're so right where, you know, you've been so afraid, but actually you're doing all the things that you're afraid of because you're so focusing on what you're afraid of. You're forgetting that you're actually doing the stuff that you're afraid of. Yeah. And it's like, and then I go, oh, bloody hell, what else could I do?

16:45We'll see you then.

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