NEW SEASON: Mad, Sad & Bad is BACK!

0:00Hi, Great Company listeners. It's me, Paloma Faith. You may remember me from episode 3, and I'm back. I hope you all loved the first series of my podcast, Mad, Sad and Bad. I thought, if you do, that I'll make another series. Here you go.

0:19Hello, I'm Paloma Fay. Each week, I welcome someone amazing into my home to talk about when they've been mad, sad and bad. Roll recording.

0:44Sorry, no thanks. That's it. Hey! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! Hi! So nice to see you. Amazing. Thank you for coming to East London. What are you talking about? This is a dope ass. How much? Can I get it? You can't buy everything, Sam. Come on! Give me a shot. This is the living room. Can't buy everything he sees. Ooh. White piano. Do you want to get on it? No.

1:22The person I'm about to introduce has already told me if you don't know who he is, then you shouldn't be watching this. But here's an introduction anyway. To you, he's an internationally acclaimed actor and cultural icon. His breakout roles were Gator Purify and Spike Lee's Jungle Fever, where he was so good, the Cannes Film Festival created the Best Supporting Performance Award for him, and Jules Winfield in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, Age 46, which earned him an Oscar nomination. He's gone on to play some of the most iconic characters in movie history, from Nick Fury in the Avengers franchise, to Stephen in Django Unchained and Neville Flynn in Snakes on a Plane, earning him cult status and actually is the highest grossing actor of all time.

2:06He's an activist and campaigned for the civil rights movement as a student, even locking Martin Luther King Sr. in a room as part of a protest at college. And 56 years later, he appeared as Uncle Sam in Kendrick Lamar's Super Bowl performance. In a word, he's a cool motherfucker. and that really doesn't sound as cool when I say it. But to me, he's a man I met a decade ago at an event and struck up a friendship that no one ever believes I have. He's someone I once did a favour for, helping with a charity fundraiser he'd organised for prostate cancer and after the event, he said he owed me one and he really meant it.

2:43Since then, he's done me too many favours and all I've managed to do is buy him some tonic water and a coffee. It's Samuel L. Jackson! Was it great? It was awesome. It was amazing. I left the French horn there because I know you play it and I don't expect you to play it, but I just thought. It's pretty. It looks beautiful. It's very beautiful instruments. It is. Yeah. And I just thought, you know, if you felt compelled to respond or you were like, I can't even think of an answer, I'm just going to play some music, you can. It's there. Do you feel like a grown-up yet?

3:22Yeah, I feel like I'm growing up all the time. Do you? Yeah, it's one of those things where you wish you could, you know, have a childlike attitude about something and now you can't because you know too much. And the world, the pressure of the world is a little greater than it should necessarily be. So, yeah. Do you think, because my marriage, it wasn't a marriage, but my relationship with my kid's dad ended. It didn't go well. I failed at that and I was just wondering about what it is that makes you think your marriage has endured the way that it has. Like, what's the key to that? I don't know.

3:59Because that's unusual in Hollywood for a marriage to last as long as yours. It's unusual for the world, you know. Or it used to be the norm, I guess. You know, I mean, we've been together for 50 some years, you know. So when you do have those volatile moments, you don't have them to the point that you go, you know, fuck you, I'm leaving. You know, or I've been in that place. Well, you know, sometimes you don't have to stay and work it out. You just have to be quiet and sit. You know, even when I was, back when I was, you know, I was an addict. That was crazy. It was crazy times in the house. She always calls it her villa in hell.

4:41But you know It was a time and it happens Do you think you're a good husband? Yes so I don't even know what that means I don't know because it's funny because people talk a lot Don't they about good husbands And good fathers is a big one Like I didn't have a great father You've obviously got a child And I feel like I'm quite Blessed because my kids I broke up With my kids dad but I think they've got A brilliant father because I didn't have that like i didn't either so yeah well i had my grandfather but then you've become a good father and a good husband well we all have flaws i'm not saying everyone's perfect well i'm just i'm just you know i go through it and i don't really think about it i know that you know when she and i went college together and we were both you know we were acting and doing all the stuff that we're doing It's like doing theater and going through it.

5:36And at one point she was the breadwinner because she made way more money than I did. I was running around New York trying to figure it out and going to auditions and doing off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off, off Broadway or, you know, bus and truck, you know, whatever it was to do. There are times when she was the responsible person. And, you know, I was there with Zoe. So our relationship was tight because I fed her. I did my best to do her hair. or whatever I could do to it. We were always together. We'd do some stupid shit with her, but whatever. But, you know, we had fun together. And I also made her sit down and read.

6:15But that is a gift. I keep saying to my kids, you must read. I'm going to sit here. I'm going to sit here with you. I'm going to read my book. You read your book. I did stuff with her that was, you know, it was fun for me, but it's very addictive behavior, I guess. You know, I was high, so I would do things. like I made all these flashcards for her. So when she was even in the bassinet of the crib and she was like, she couldn't talk or she couldn't do anything, I would like hold up, you know, A, B, C, and she was like, watch. You think that was a manifestation of your addiction? Part of it. Yeah.

6:50But I was like, you know, interacting with her, but it was fun. Yeah. It was a good part of it. Yeah. This is a cool thing to do. So I would do that and I would go, you know, eyes. And I would hold up and think of eyes. dad mommy uh zoe so she was when she finally started talking she was like there she went but she also learned to curse early because she was because she was with me all the time so that was happening too you know i could hear her talking to her little friends and they would be messing with her and they go fuck you and i thought my kids do that and unfortunately it is one of the cutest things ever watching a child curse and we can't like you do that thing where you're like I can't laugh, but it's amazing.

7:33I just told her, I said, look, you can do that with them, but you can't do that with grown people. You can't do that when you're not in the house. When you're here, you can do that. But you can't. My wife always tells this story. When we were at a wedding somewhere and this woman had Zoe in her arms and she was like, you want something to eat, baby? And she's like, what is that shit? And her lady was like. And then she looked at me and said, no, that shit looks fucked up. so good so she didn't eat how old was she she was up there the woman was holding her she was like barely talking i was like give it to me who who the baby is this and you're like oh you're the guy that swears in movies here you go right here but uh no so we had a great we had a great relationship in terms of i had to be with her not and i i was the singular person taking care of her when my wife was doing whatever she was doing.

8:28And then she came back and, you know, then she was with her and we had, you know, all these things. But, you know, during my addiction, I tried to do everything, you know, to make sure she was cool. I mean, I would be, I would be downstairs in the, in the kitchen. We had a brownstone. So it's like a four, four story brownstone. She slept on like the third level. So if I was in the kitchen cooking cocaine and I sitting there smoking it, I would smoke it. I take a hit and my brain would say, Zoe's choking in the covers. And I would like, run the steps. Look in the room. Okay, she's okay. Go back down to the kitchen.

9:06She's choking in the covers now. It's like, oh, shit. Do you regret it now? Like, when you look back, do you feel regret for that? No, hell no. I was working out. I was on Stairmaster. I was in great shape. I was just the best shape addict you could ever, you know. I was running up and down the stairs. The highest functioning addict ever. I was going to work, had a job. I was working on Broadway. I was doing shit. Join me every Tuesday with a new effervescent companion. You can follow Mad, Sad and Bad with Paloma Faith on your favourite podcast app and search for Mad, Sad and Bad Podcast to follow on YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.

9:46Out now. We'll be right back.