Ella Purnell - ‘Therapy changed my life’

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0:36welcome to how to fail the podcast that believes as truman capote did that failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor before we get to our guest today i wanted to mention our subscriber podcast Failing With Friends, where my guest and I answer your questions and offer advice on some of your failures too. Here's a bit of Ella Purnell. I think that it's painful when you see a friendship end and if there's any way you can hold on to those memories and the experiences that friendship gave you as a gift and focus on the ways it's helped you grow and change as a person and be thankful for those things instead of focusing on the end, that would be helpful.

1:20And also give it time. Do join in by following the link in the podcast notes and you can send me an email or look out for my call outs once a month on Instagram for quickfire questions. And I've got some very, very exciting news because my How to Fail tour in spring next year has added a whole new London date on March the 28th, 2025 in London's Barbican Centre. Pre-sale for Friends of Fane starts this Thursday, November the 14th, and the tickets go on general sale on Friday, November the 15th. If you want to book, head to www.fane.co.uk. I hope to see you there. And now, here's Ella. At 28, the actor Ella Purnell has already amassed a CV that would look impressive belonging to a person double her age.

2:15Her TV roles include the ill-fated Jackie in Yellow Jackets and the plucky but naive Lucy McLean in Fallout, Amazon Prime's second most watched series of all time. On the big screen, she's worked with director Tim Burton in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and played the younger Keira Knightley in Never Let Me Go. Her American accent is so convincing that you might not know she was born and raised in East London, the daughter of a yoga teacher mother and a businessman father. She started modelling at two, booked her first commercial at eight and took weekly acting classes at the Sylvia Young Theatre School.

2:56At 12, she spent a year in the cast of Oliver in the West End. Her latest project, which Purnell also executive produced, sees her starring in Sky Atlantic's Sweet Pea, a dark comedy drama which tells the story of Rhiannon, a receptionist who, fed up of being ignored, bullied and underestimated, finally snaps. The loss of control leads to Rhiannon discovering her own sense of self, but not before she's killed someone. It's a fascinating role and one which demonstrates Purnell's conscious choice to take on parts which surprise and challenge. This refusal to be typecast has won her much acclaim.

3:41She was recently given the Madame Figaro Rising Star Award at the 2024 Cannes Series Festival. I really have worked very hard in the last 10 years to create the life that I want rather than living the life that was set out for me, Purnell says. And they're two very different things. Ella Purnell. Welcome to How to Fail. Hi, thanks for having me. Thank you for being here. That was such a lovely little intro. Thank you. Well, I didn't have enough time to put in all of your numerous credits. You have been working so hard all of your life, really. Oh, yeah. Well, thanks. Not hard work if you're having fun.

4:21True, true. That's what we all have to say. That's what we all have to say sometimes at five in the morning on a rainy Tuesday, don't we? What was the life that you think was set out for you rather than the life that you've worked hard to live? You know, I don't know how different they would have looked. Aside from the fact that I just didn't, I wouldn't have had any autonomy. I think that it's very difficult to be happy when you're passive in your own life. I think happiness comes from being empowered and emboldened to make your own choices. It comes from making mistakes and learning from those mistakes, even though those mistakes might not make you happy in the moment.

4:58Looking back, they made you happy because it shows freedom and choice, which is so important for the human experience, I think. I don't want to embarrass you by stating boldly that you're phenomenally beautiful, but I am going to do that. You're very sweet. Back at you. Thank you. Stop. But you are. And I wonder how difficult it was for you to stop being typecast. Were you constantly being given roles as like the hot girlfriend? There was a lot of the hot girlfriend, a lot of the sort of like damsel in distress type thing. I mean, but I do think that's just like all young women go through a phase where that is sort of the only part that's available to you.

5:40And it was always just more interesting to me to be like the funny one or the kind of gross one or to put on like a bad wig and, you know, just do something different and interesting. And I think that's kind of how I am in my real life is like really quite silly. Let's talk about Sweet Pea, which I was riveted by. I don't know if you ever watched a movie called Falling Down, which was Michael Douglas in the main part. And it's about a man who snaps and gives into his rage. But it's an examination of specific male rage, I would say. And for me, I thought Sweet Pea was so interesting because it was about female rage that is often masked by sadness.

6:25Can you tell us what drew you to that theme? You know, it's an almost all-female creative team behind it. And it's not something that we ever really talked about or considered because it sort of seems so universally understood behind the scenes. We all obviously knew what it was. We didn't really need to do it. It seems so obvious. And it's funny because we just called it rage because we're all women. And we didn't feel the need to specify the difference between our rage and regular male rage. But there is obviously inherently huge differences. something i really related to rihanna about is the fact that as women we have to be so careful about how we express our anger so as not to appear hysterical or emotional we have to be so careful about the way that we ask for what we want and what we need so that we're not shrill or demanding or bossy all of these you know gender specific words that we don't use for men obviously and with Rihanna and it manifests in this sort of simmering rage that is under the surface and the whole way through the first episode of the show it should feel like this pressure is building it's a tight wire that is just gonna snap at any given moment and she can't stand up for herself she doesn't have the confidence you know really the self-esteem to say what she wants and how she feels and to say excuse me man spreader on the bus would you please close your legs anything like that she can't say she just smiles through it and that smiling through the pain is I think such a relatable thing for I mean a lot of people especially women definitely and I think you do a great job of telling that story so that by the time she stabs a man I'm like I'm totally with her that that makes complete logical sense to me I know it's so funny some of the comments have been like i support women's wrongs yeah as well as women's rights and that is that's good that's kind of what we wanted to do is another thing i was excited about was the challenge of doing female dexter feel empathy for her relate to her emotions and her experiences without obviously relating to her actions and what she does that's just harder with a woman than it is a man it is because we all subconsciously judge women more harshly than we do men even the women And even the allies, even the feminists, it's put into us by society from birth.

8:49It's what we're all trained in condition to do subconsciously. So it was important to us to have that first episode where you see her really, really going through it. You see how invisible she is. People don't notice her. They don't see her. So that when we get to that snap moment at the end, her first kill, we almost are kind of, you know, yes, we don't support murder. however there is a part of her that really is glad she's at least doing something she's taking agency in her life for better or for worse obviously for worse when do you think you have felt underestimated what experiences did you draw from as the actress i think they just happen to women all the time it is as simple as like having worked on my house at the moment and my male friend was over at the house hanging out and um the electrician came in and just spoke to him the whole time about the work i'm the one that paid for it i'm the one that made the calls sent the emails this guy doesn't know anything about the house it's not his house and it's just tiny things like that when you you just get so frustrated and of course i can't go hello talk to me because that would be rude and i would probably get labeled something that if it was a guy who said that it'd probably be a funny joke.

10:03So you have to very politely just kind of smile. And there's no, you know, we're not given the tools and the vocabulary to say, hi, it's my house, actually. He doesn't live here. It happens so frequently that you just get, you just smile through it. And it's sort of just, you don't even think about it. It's just become normalized that that is just something that's going to happen because you're a woman. Well, talking of women, you bear the notable distinction of having played younger versions on screen of Keira Knightley, Margot Robbie and Angelina Jolie. I know. I don't know how that's happened.

10:38Which is amazing because they look very different. And yet when I look at your face, I can totally see elements of all of them. And I know that Keira Knightley is still something of a mentor to you, isn't she? Keira and I work together very closely and that was my first ever film I did, Never Let Me Go, and I was 12 maybe, 12 years old. and she's just the most gracious, kind, sweet, considerate human. You know, she started acting very young, really looked out for us and we worked together quite closely. It was really interesting. So it was three youngers and it was Keira Knightley, Kerry Mulligan, Andrew Garfield.

11:18I mean, it was an amazing cast. Come on, crazy. And we worked together a lot to try to be the same character, be the same person, you know, talking about little mannerisms we would have in common. and we read each other's scenes sometimes, mix and match the cast. So getting to watch her and learn from her up close as an actor as well as like a young person, just really, who loved Pirates of the Caribbean, it was incredible. And she always gave me the time of day, really, really nice person. So nice. I interviewed her once in my previous incarnation as a print journalist, and she was so great. Exactly as you described, turned up on her own, wolfed down a croissant, wore an amazing like denim jumpsuit.

11:56final question before we get onto your failures is about exec producing which you did on sweet pea given what we've just discussed about the electrician ignoring you in your own house how empowering was that role i wouldn't have done it unless it felt really right i mean like i wanted to be on the other side of camera for ages i've directed a couple i directed a short produced a couple shorts and wanted to do it in a way that i felt that i could contribute fully either with a project I care deeply deeply about or a character I really understood and it just felt like one of those wonderful kismet things and they completely I didn't want like a vanity credit I didn't want to be like an actor producer who doesn't really do it I really wanted to get stuck in I wanted to be in the writers room I wanted to be on the reckeys I wanted to get involved not all of us are always the best behaved so I do get it but we get treated like children a lot of the time you know people kind of coddle us and like calm us down and say what they think we want to hear and And I hate that.

12:52It really bothers me. And I get it. There's this insane hierarchy on set where we're treated ridiculously well for absolutely no reason at all. When the crew are the ones who are working a million hours and they're underpaid. No, what is stupid? I think it's so stupid. But they always, always just treated me like a creative, collaborative person. And they didn't sort of, I don't know, condescend me in any way or make me feel like I didn't earn my place in that room. it's a slightly it's it's dying out now it's slightly older but there is a little bit of a connotation that actors are stupid sometimes we get treated like we're stupid and we're really not and they never made me feel like that they always embraced me and included me you know we all just want what's best for the character we all want what's best for the show and for the story and Rhiannon was always our North Star making this character as authentically truthful as possible and I think that's what kind of encouraged me and gave me the tools and the vocabulary to actually stand up for myself when I felt like I needed to and advocate for the character, advocate for myself and pitch my own ideas and an environment that otherwise could be quite scary.

13:57Yeah. Do you think you learnt that you loved working in teams or you learnt how to stand up for yourself in a kind of collaborative group effort from Yellow Jackets? Because I know that that was a very special experience in terms of the friendships you formed. Definitely. I mean, I think it's a little bit on every job, actually. It's like kind of 10%. you can't you grow like 10 % as a person on every experience I remember Sweet Bitter was a really formative one for me because I was 20 moved to New York on my own and didn't know anyone and it was my first time doing TV it was my first time working in the states it was my first time doing a lot of things but my first time doing any like sex scenes or really any grown-up role and not just playing a teenager or a child and I was terrified it was also my first time being the lead and I showed up being number one on the call sheet which is a massive responsibility and I'd obviously been lucky enough to to learn from so many people I really wanted to be a good leader who advocated for others that was something that was really ingrained in me um and so that was some that was a time that I really learned how to say no guys we can't break the turnaround the crew have worked insanely long they've been up since four in the morning i've got to protect this crew my friends my family it's hard it's really hard and you're scared and there's also this thing that child actors are taught is like you'll do anything it takes to be employed jeanette mccurdy wrote this incredible book i'm obsessed with loved it she's amazing incredible oh my god i love that book and and there's so much stuff she said about being a child actor that even me on like a much much smaller scale obviously i did not have you know nowhere near the experiences she had but I could still relate to a lot of the things she said and she said something about being a child actor and just molding yourself any which way to be the most employable version of yourself and not be difficult being a young girl who is a child actor not being difficult is the biggest thing and to unlearn that that people pleasing aspect of the industry and be like actually I'm really sorry I know you guys need the shot but nothing is more important than And everyone hears health and safety.

16:08And sometimes it's easier to stand up for other people than yourself. So that was definitely the first building block for me saying. Wow, that's so interesting. And actually, it leads us onto one of your failures. So I'm going to reverse the order slightly. Because when you wrote it to me, it was number two. But it is that you failed yourself for a number of years by consistently prioritising other people's needs and happiness above your own. So clearly, that relates to being a child actor and wanting to please. did it relate to other areas of your life personally speaking yeah it stayed with me a really long time it's something I'm still unlearning it's an interesting relationship I have with my work where you know obviously I started acting when I was eight and going into auditions you know it's so competitive it's such an unusual uncomfortable unhealthy the environment auditioning as a child i mean god we need to help these kids like it's awful they get all of these young teenage girls in a room everyone's competitive the mums are all competitive everyone's nervous we're all eyeing each other up and by the way it's like that scene out of la la where everyone looks exactly the same you know when emma emma stone comes out of the room and all girls look like her and there's this this thing of like god no wonder women are just constantly pitted against each other it's ingrained in us from being really young in our industry and and then when you get employed you know you'd never say actually I don't want to do that because then you're labeled it's difficult to work with you'll never be employed and you hear these stories I'm sure are not true but it just told to you as sort of myths of like deep law about young actresses that said they weren't going to eat that weren't going to do that and they never worked again and you're terrified you're going to be that person so you just do whatever you say yes all the time you know you get to 18 19 20 and the stakes are different you know suddenly you're getting offered nudity scenes or raunchy scenes or scenes where you have to kiss someone or act out a violent scene or maybe use language that you're not comfortable with wear something that you're not comfortable with i went to like photo shoots at 15 16 and they'd pull out like a bra and knickers i cannot say no and thank god i have an incredible team around me and an amazing mum who are there to advocate for me but not everyone has that Not everyone has good people on their side.

18:27And it really, my heart hurts for all the people that don't feel like they can say no. It's a scary thing the first time you say no to something that makes you uncomfortable. And I really did genuinely think, I'm never going to work again. Do you remember when that was, the first time you said that no? It was a bit of nudity in the script and it was my first time ever being asked. And I was just so young and I just didn't want to do it. and I was not comfortable with my body and I was not comfortable with, you know, that I would have been acting the scene with multiple people, by the way, not just one person.

19:01Luckily, my fear in that moment and my insecurity outweighed my need to ever work again. I genuinely was like, all right, this is it, my career's over, but I just can't be naked on screen. I just can't. I will die of embarrassment. And I've done nudity since then and it was empowering and it was amazing. and I felt confident, and I'm proud of myself for doing what I did. And I don't know if I would have had a good relationship with my body today if I had done it then. I would have just been too insecure. I'm really glad that I said no. I'm really glad that my fear won that time. Yeah, that's so powerful.

19:38Sometimes fear and anger, they're your internal protection mechanisms. Well done for saying no. I'm proud of Younger Ella. Thank you.

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20:55you say that you're still a work in progress you're still unlearning this people-pleasing tick by the way so am i i don't know if ever does it ever go i don't know i think potentially when you're in your 80s if you're lucky enough to get maybe then i can't wait it definitely gets better definitely because well my experience is is that i know myself better and you've taken more risks and you've said more no's and you've survived them and actually you realize that they're really empowering and so all of that is like learned experience that you can put in the bank right but I wonder how difficult it is when you are as recognized as you are when you do have this massive Instagram following when you are on this hugely popular series on Amazon is it difficult to separate that from your need to be liked because trying to be liked by all that many those many millions must be impossible i talk about it all the time i think about it all the time it's something i've had to reckon with a lot and number one there is this need that still exists in me all the time to justify myself when you say no to something or you get misunderstood or rumors circulate i still want to go on the internet and write actually and i want to defend myself because it's frustrating being misunderstood and more than that I don't want to be disliked nobody wants to be disliked and anybody who you know is in the public eye is going to be disliked this is my word of the year is surrender I can't control anything you do at a certain point when you're in the public eye become public property and there is the version of me that exists out there the version of me that is perceived by other people that is not the version of me that I am and nobody knows me except for my friends and my family and so therefore it can't get to me it can get to that person but she doesn't have any feelings because she's not real it's a figment of everybody's imagination it's their projected image it doesn't exist it's it looks different for all of those people and as long as my inner life is rich and I have incredible friends incredible family I have great experiences I eat good food I know what I like and I love my little life then that's all that matters you know it's a very long-winded way of saying don't listen to the haters but it's hard of course you read the comments of course you see the things of course you hear what people shout you on the street and it's horrible and it does it does affect you but you just have to think that's not me whoever they're talking about is a different person you're so wise I think sometimes when you hear this advice you feel like you have to be entirely impervious and just let it all bounce off you otherwise you're failing but I love that idea that the projected image she can deal with that because it's not you I find that very helpful yeah I don't have to defend myself like yeah it's so much energy and I'd rather put that energy into people that really deserve it and the things that I really love people shout at you in the street Oh, yeah, it's happened.

24:00Like mean stuff? All the time. Sometimes they're just shouting words or names or lines from shows. I get a lot of people saying mean things about my eyes. It doesn't affect me. It doesn't bother me. Wow. Sometimes in sunlight my eyes look really creepy, and sometimes in sunlight my eyes look really good and gorge. It's all perspective. Everyone contains multiduces. Everyone looks good and bad. It depends on the perspective, on the day, how much sleep you've had. And it just doesn't, like, why does any of it matter? I guess that's where I'm at now. Right now I'm hypnotised by your eyes, which are like two of the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen.

24:37So just put that on the record. That brings us back to the character of Rhiannon, because I do think you do a great job of portraying that duality on screen. She does visibly seem to inhabit herself and her looks, the more powerful she becomes. And she also does something which I wonder if you can relate to, because you have been so courageous and generous in the past and spoken about your own mental health journey. And Rhiannon pulls her hair. She's got this obsessive compulsion to pull her hair because she's bullied at school. I know that you've spoken about your years of self-harm. Did you see a correlation between those two things?

25:16I did in the sense that they're both compulsive behaviours. So I did a lot of research into the hair pulling, which is called trichotillomania. And it affects so many people, way more people than you'd think. And a lot of people describe it as almost a form of OCD. It's a compulsive thing that you don't even necessarily realize that you're doing. And I had that with self-harm. It wasn't always as sort of graphic or violent as you'd imagine. Sometimes it's as simple as digging your nails into yourself or pinching your own skin or just doing small, tiny acts of violence, small, tiny acts of pain.

25:53Subconscious, I suppose, is the right word for it. So sometimes when we were mapping out when Rhiannon's hands would go to her hair, something that Ella did, our director, which I thought was really cool, was sometimes you'd cut to her and her hands would already be in her hair. You wouldn't see her hands go up there. You're not making a big plot point about it every time. It's just something that she lives with. It's something that she does. And that's something that we talked about a lot was like, I didn't want it to be this big dramatic thing that like was overplayed. It is something that there is a thought or a feeling that every time Rhiannon has, or feels, she impulsively pulls.

26:29Whether that's being maybe feeling worthless or feeling overlooked, you know, invisible, anything like that. Because a lot of parents listen to this podcast and some teenagers, and I know parents who have struggled to understand when their teen is self-harming in some way. And I wonder if you could give one piece of advice or one piece of explanation to the parents listening what would it be the first thing i would say is that the biggest misconception with self-harm is that people do it for attention and that is very rarely if ever the case a compulsive urge to hurt yourself or harm yourself very rarely comes from what other people see it's more about how you feel about yourself and it can be really really damaging it's so painful for a kid to go through speaking from experience and when you do look for support or open up about your experiences to be told that you're doing it for attention because you're seeking something from other people validation from other people all that's going to do is push that person further and deeper inside themselves and make them never want to ask for help ever again and there's so many fantastic resources out there young minds is an amazing charity that i work with that offers so many different resources for parents and for young people everyone really um there's tons of other ones mind is another good one i would say probably try to learn as much as you can before you talk to your kids so that you can come in maybe with the right language and a gentle technique, you know.

28:14And we'll link to those in the show notes. Thank you, Ella. Final question on this. How do you feel about yourself now? I feel really good and I'm so glad I'm finally here. I never ever thought I'd be this okay, ever. I had so many issues growing up. I really struggled with a lot of panic attacks, a lot of anxiety a lot of depression and that lasted a really long time I was really in and out of it for years probably up until 23 24 and therapy changed my life it wasn't easy and it didn't come for nothing but I'm really happy and I think the key thing is this might be what self-confidence and self-esteem is built off I like myself I'm proud of the way I behave and so therefore it's like I'm okay I can sleep well at night what you think or say about me doesn't bother me saying no to things I'm not comfortable with I know I'm a good person and I know I'm doing my best and so that and so I feel all right I'm happy beautiful your second failure is that you failed your friends and family on countless occasions what do you mean by this I prioritized work over everything else in my life for such a long time I missed birthdays I missed weddings I missed engagement parties graduation ceremonies so much stuff and I'll never be able to get those back I'll never I'll never be able to fix those things um and it was a mistake and I and I really did feel like the worst friend in the world and my friends have always been so I do not deserve them like they have been so unconditionally loving and supportive not all of them a few of them told me where to go and rightfully so because I was badly behaved and I did not value them or appreciate them as I should have and that's a failure on my part because I just had this workaholicism that I think I developed from being a child actor probably and from maybe not understanding that my worth is linked to not what I do but who I am so for a long time I were like I had something to prove probably because I did have something to prove um and it wasn't making me happy it really wasn't it got to a point where I was like great I'm doing really well in work but like who have I got to share it with you know and I and now I my friendships are the most important thing to me my family's it's it's the pillar of who I am and I actually don't want it with it if I can't have them I don't want any of it but I'd rather not have the career that I have right now and still have my friends and my family I'll do anything else to have them because it's the most important thing when did you start wanting to act because you were acting from a very young age but how conscious were you that it's what you wanted to do I never thought about doing this at 28 years old and it wasn't really until I was about 15 16 and all my friends talking about what uni they were going to go to and what they wanted to be when they grew up I was like oh gosh what am I going to do and I really was racking my brains about what I was going to do.

31:21And my mom was like, well, you're going to be an actor. And there was always this sort of voice in the back of my head that was like, do I want to be an actor? Or is this just something that I'm going to do because I'm already doing it? I'd like to make that choice on my own. I'd like to be an actor because I want to be an actor. So I had to think about it for a couple of years. And I fell in and out of love with acting a million times. And I changed my mind a million times. I wanted to be a writer. And then I wanted to be a teacher. And I did do all of those other jobs. I was, as I was acting and I was at school, I was also, I was a drama teacher.

31:49I was a piano teacher. I was a maths tutor. I don't know how because I'm terrible at maths. I tried all of these different things. I got a place at uni to do creative writing. And then I did A Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children with Tim Burton. And Tim Burton has always been one of my heroes. I didn't know I could get jobs like that. I didn't know I could do it. And I was like, wow, I actually had a goal and I achieved it. I thought about what kind of actor I'd be and what kind of actors I liked. Helena Bonham Carter, number one favourite. I thought about what directors I liked and what movies I liked Edward Cesar Hans and Tim Burton were like number one on top of the list and then I actually got to work with him and it blew my mind and I thought well hang on if I can do that maybe I will be an answer and I kind of fell back in love with it on my own terms which was necessary otherwise I don't think I would still be doing it How do you manage for instance friendship when your schedule is probably out of sync with a lot of other people's it's probably very intense and then it's color coordinated is what it is okay okay so yeah tell me how you manage it and how you've managed it with your friends how you've communicated this to them i think it's about saying no and prioritizing and restructuring your life in a way that makes you happy figure it out figure out what makes you happy and then build your life around that i realized that way too late there's this um analogy i read that are like if you keep sawing with a blunt blade you're just putting in a lot a lot of effort but you're not really cutting the thing you need to pull the saw out and sharpen the blade i think about that a lot you need to take a break you need to say no to things rest refill the cup and the way that i personally refill my cup is with friends and family i wonder how much of it and maybe none of it is related to the fact that your parents got divorced when you were quite young and I know that a lot of children of divorced parents shuttle from house to house and feel that they have to be perfect to be lovable does that relate in any way not so much because they they divorced when I was one so I sort of didn't know anything else and I think it's more about being a child actor I think it's more about even when I was going between parents' houses.

34:09My life really kind of revolved around going to auditions and going to acting class and doing all of that stuff. It was more about wanting to make everyone else around me really proud of me for, in my therapy sessions, I never really talk about the divorce. I talk a lot about being a child actor. Yeah, I guess because you didn't know any different because it did happen when you were one. It might be different if I was older and I had experience with my parents being together. And also both my parents remarried when I was between the ages of five and 11. So I, for the most part, grew up with four parents.

34:42God, I had too much support. Too many parents. Everyone was really supportive. I guess I just, for whatever reason, really wanted to be a good job. And I could tell that they were all proud of me when I got jobs. And I suppose for a child that doesn't have the emotional maturity or even the vocabulary to really understand what's going on fully, that was like, oh, I'm doing a good job. I must continue. Yes. I always really felt very good being able to tell people, you know, calling my nan and being like, I got a movie. And it was really, it made me feel proud to make other people proud.

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36:31let's get onto your final failure, which is failure to be perfect. And we were chatting before we started recording about the fact you said, I bet that comes up a lot. And I said, less often than you think. And no man has ever stated it's one of his failures. Which is not shocking, but not surprising. Exactly. Tell me why you feel this as a failure. I don't know. Why do we feel that? Why do we feel like anything less than perfection is a failure? because perfection by definition, it should be impossible. It should be something that happens so rarely that when it does, it's magic. And we shouldn't expect to be able to achieve it.

37:10I have like a group of girlfriends in our 20-somethings, and we call ourselves the 20-somethings. And this comes up all the time. It's the guilt that we feel for not being perfect. And I think for me personally, it's like I just feel guilt. I feel so much guilt. I feel guilty all the time. I feel like I'm constantly falling behind, like I'm drowning or something. It's like I can never really catch up. I have this image of my life where, like, my inbox is on zero. And I, you know, I've got all my Christmas presents bought and wrapped by November. That's being generous because really I'd like it done by, like, August.

37:48But November's fine. And I never miss a birthday. I never miss a deadline. I'm on it all the time. I know what my top four favourite films are. And I'm never going to be that person. And I just feel guilty every day. Do you know anyone who is that person? No. Do they exist? They don't exist. They don't, do they? So I'm wondering what standards you're holding yourself to. Because those other women in that group, 20-somethings, I'm presuming you love them and think they're great. And they must not be perfect either because that's impossible so there's some is there some sort of internal comparison mechanisms that that is happening for you my perfectionism i think it's a form of ocd it kind of revolves around my mind constantly i'm constantly ruminating on my flaws on and that comes from a place of lack it comes from what's wrong with me what can i fix next and i think even therapy and and like you know working on yourself can even that can be used as a tool of like self-flagellation if you don't like yourself enough.

38:47Do you know what I mean? Yes. Because you're constantly focusing on what you don't have and what's wrong with you. I think it can be very difficult, especially I love wellness. I'm really into, as we know, therapy, mental health, working on yourself. But I also think it can be quite toxic. And if there's an, you know, it's a very, very delicate line focusing on what's wrong with me and how can I fix it and how can I optimize my life and treat myself with the love the respect and the compassion that I deserve preach so well expressed so well expressed because your uniqueness and your talent comes partly from your flaws that is what makes you you love that And it's so beautiful.