Gugu Mbatha-Raw - ‘Have I ever worked with an awful co-star? Maybe one or two’

0:00This episode is brought to you by State Farm. Checking off the boxes on your to-do list is a great feeling. And when it comes to checking off coverage, a State Farm agent can help you choose an option that's right for you. Whether you prefer talking in person, on the phone, or using the award-winning app, it's nice knowing you have help finding coverage that best fits your needs. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. At Sierra, discover great deals on top-brand workout gear, like high-quality walking shoes, which might lead to another discovery. 40 ,000 steps, baby! Who's on top now, Karen?

0:37You've taken the office step challenge a step too far. Don't worry, though. Sierra also has yoga gear. It might be a good place to find your zen. Discover top brands at unexpectedly low prices. Sierra, let's get moving.

1:01Welcome to How to Fail, the podcast that believes that most failures can teach us something meaningful. Before we get onto the main episode today, I just wanted to remind you of my subscriber podcast, Failing with Friends, where my special guest and I answer listener questions and offer our advice on your failures. This week, I am joined by the one and only Gugu Mbata Roar. Ultimately, do you still feel energised by it or is it actually, you know, consistently getting you down? Do join in by following the link in the podcast notes where you can send me an email or look out for my monthly call-outs on Instagram for quickfire questions.

1:44Gugu Umbata-Raw is an actress who firmly resists typecasting. Growing up in Oxford, the daughter of a South African doctor and an English nurse, she started ballet at the age of four. But it wasn't until starring as Dorothy in a local drama production of The Wizard of Oz that she decided she wanted to be a performer. After graduating from RADA in 2004, she has taken on a fascinating range of roles. Her West End debut was as Ophelia in Hamlet, while on screen she's tackled everything from Belle, the biracial daughter of an admiral raised in 18th century England in Amma Asante's movie of the same name, to Hannah, a victim of sexual assault in the hit Apple TV Plus drama The Morning Show.

2:29Now Gugu returns to Apple TV Plus with the second season of psychological thriller Surface, in which she reprises her role as Sophie Ellis, a woman piecing together her life after losing her memory in a traumatic incident. She's also, for the first time, an executive producer on the project. Alongside acting, she's a global goodwill ambassador for the UN, influenced perhaps by her father's years as an ANC activist opposing apartheid in South Africa. Early on in her career, she came under pressure to change her name, but refused, as she puts it, because you don't give away your identity that easily.

3:11I'm the first Gugu I know of in this industry, and it's a gift to be able to celebrate that originality. Gugu Mbata Roar, welcome to How to Fail. Oh, thank you. It's so wonderful hearing all of that. Oh, well, it's so wonderful to have you in the studio. I don't normally say this, but looking a vision in crocus yellow. Come on, spring. Yes, you are willing it. You are manifesting it into existence. I wanted to end on that quote because I wanted to ask you about the meaning of your name, because I know it's got a very specific meaning. Yes. Gugu is short for Guguletu, which means our pride in Zulu.

3:51And what better reason than that for sticking to your name? Right. Exactly. Exactly. You've got to be proud of it. And it's funny, just looking at this mug, which says, Fail Better on the back that you have here, it just reminds me of my dad always said to me, Great men try and fail, but they never fail to try. That was one of, and it just, when you were talking about my dad just then, it reminded me of that, that quote. So anyway. How beautiful. Yeah. What else did he teach you? Well, that was when I failed my driver's test, a driver's license test. You just reminded me of him. I mean, he taught me so much.

4:27I think resilience and I guess in a global awareness, you know, growing up in Oxfordshire, I think him coming from South Africa and what he went through just gave me an awareness of the world outside of my town and outside of my experience quite early. Did he talk much about his time in the ANC and as an activist against the Pondite? Not really when I was a child. I didn't really understand it. I think he would talk about discrimination, but I think it wasn't really actually until I worked as a Goodwill Ambassador with UNHCR and refugees that he started to talk more about his experiences, I think, because UNHCR had helped him.

5:14And I didn't even know that. That was something he held very close to him. So, yeah, I think it was, as my cousins would say, a kind of ancestral call bringing me into that world for refugees as he considered himself a political refugee himself. And how had they helped him? Well, it was to do with him getting a visa, I guess, or a sort of passport when he was finishing his medical training in Zambia, I think, long before I was born. But, you know, when he fled South Africa as a medical student. So he had to get all of his papers in order and to finish to become a doctor. Sorry, I got off track.

5:58Yes. Because we are partly here to talk about surface. I just told you my husband and I have binged. I love that. And it's very rare that our TV interests coalesce. So thank you for that gift. And you play this fascinating character of Sophie Ellis, who without giving too much away, if you haven't seen the first season, but you lose your long-term memory. That's right. What I find fascinating about the characters that you gravitate towards and that you choose, including Sophie, is that they are often women trapped in social constructs whose life is affected by unspoken power dynamics. And often those power dynamics are to do with gender.

6:41And I wonder if you've intentionally thought about that or it's a coincidence or whether that is something that really you gravitate towards. Yeah. I mean, that's a great analysis. I think it's chicken an egg really sometimes I think you know I look at some of the projects I've done and a lot of them do explore identity and certainly Sophie is grappling with her identity not just not least this other persona of Tess that she believes people know her by but um but I think those are really interesting areas to explore I think ever since I did Belle which was very much sort of the collision of you know identity race class and gender and would talk with Amra Sante about those themes.

7:25I think that they are really interesting subjects to explore in drama. And I think if you're a lead as a woman on screen, those themes can't help but intersect with the story somehow. So yeah, I don't know if it's conscious or not, but I seem to magnetise those kind of stories. And how do you feel playing those roles has impacted your own sense of self? And how do you think maybe that's also been helped by getting older? I think you grow in confidence. And I think certainly on surface, I'm now an executive producer on the show, which has been an amazing thing that has come with experience and also getting the chance to work with Hello Sunshine, Reese Witherspoon's production company, and that being the ethos of their company.

8:22I would say it's one of the most diverse crews that I've worked in. And so looking at that, you do feel a sense of getting older or just a sense of the industry changing beneath your feet, but also kind of a pride that you have also been part of that evolution. Yes. It feels like your choices are very intentional, not just in the roles that you on but the people that you work with I'm very struck by how many female directors you work with for instance are you always thinking about that I think initially it was female directors that just gave me the best roles without sounding like I know I know I you know when I think about Belle when um with Amara Sante when I think about Beyond the Lights with Gina Prince-Bythewood You know, working on Fast Color with Julia Hart, working with Ava DuVernay.

9:10I feel like that those stories, it was sort of a meeting of not just the story itself, but the point of view. and I think for me you can have a great female role but it can still be with the male gaze what was really interesting with those directors that I was working with certainly in my first leads in film is that it very much felt like it was the female gaze and the perspective of the story was coming through this woman's the way this woman was seeing the world and how the world was seeing her Let's get on to your failures your first failure is your failure to be a ballet dancer that's right so when did you start learning how to dance I mean I was probably always leaping around the living room there's pictures of me as a child in a tutu but I I feel like I probably first um had ballet lessons when I was four my you know and I was an only child my mom took me to ballet initially I think because well she went to ballet as a little girl and, you know, and she was a nurse and I think she probably would have loved to have done something more creative.

10:22But also I just had so much energy. Being an only child, it was a way to kind of burn off my energy after school. And then I wanted to go to tap and then I wanted to go to jazz and then I wanted to join the musical theatre club. So, but I loved ballet so much, I think because of the discipline. I think that there was so much structure to it you know you started with the bar work and your plies and by the end of the class you were leaping across the room in a sweat and I took it really seriously a certain stage around sort of between 11 I mean I remember age 11 coming to London and being fitted for my first pair of pointe shoes in Covent Garden you know that was it was so magical but I I took about five ballet classes a week you know between um 11 and 15 you do all your grades grades one to sort of seven or eight then you do pre-elementary and then you do your elementary and that elementary even though it sounds like so such a beginner's it's it's it's actually sort of the semi-professional if you pass your elementary you can get into the royal ballet and you can go to ballet school and all the other grades you'd get sort of you know a whole pass merit you know distinction there was a you know but the elementary was just pass or fail and and I'd always got distinction um from all my other ballet grades and I did my elementary and I failed and I was 15 and I was such um high achiever at school I was you know a student just doing you know school in my spare time and you know dance and drama after school and and it was the first time that I'd really failed at anything and I guess aware that that's a real privileged position to be in but but for me it sort of was a huge moment of reassessing oh right like it's not just going to be one smooth trajectory to the royal ballet you know actually that was tough and oh wow like I'm not going to be a ballet dancer I have to actually think about what I love about dancing and can I do something else that's close to it and then I was like oh well I like being on stage still and and and I like musicals and there's dancing in musicals you just have to sing and do a bit of acting as well so well you know and it sort of opened me up to to that and and then I became a huge musical theater nerd and thought I wanted to do that for another three years and then but then that brought me to acting and I think at the time then I was doing my A-levels and was doing art and English literature and just got introduced to Shakespeare.

13:00And so it sort of led me to an awareness of plays and literature and acting and sort of finding my voice as opposed to just expressing myself physically. So in a way, I'm really thankful to that first failure because if I was a ballet dancer, I'd be retired by now. Long retired, wouldn't be sitting here talking to you. So interesting for a number of reasons. I'm a big believer that any rejection is redirection. And I think you've expressed that so beautifully with that anecdote. That first experience of something not going according to plan when you've put in so much work is heartbreaking. Yes.

13:43Yes. And can you still access that feeling that you had? Oh, yeah. And I think stories, we're sort of told this narrative, beginning, middle, end, and it's all going to go in a certain trajectory. But yeah, I absolutely kind of think I'm still quite a physical performer. I think things have got more and more distilled. And I think, you know, from theatre to being on screen, stillness is valued more in a way, but you can still have all of that stuff fizzling underneath but still now I'll yeah I'll do things and I'll sit in a certain way or I'll you know even doing a fight scene or something and a stunt coordinator will be like did you used to do dancing because you know you just pointed your toe and we really wanted to actually kick some ass not like point where you point your toe you know the muscle memory is is is deep you know how you sit in a chair and move how you carry yourself I think it really it's still within me somewhere.

14:37Stays in you. When I was doing research for this interview I watched a video of you being interviewed on Facebook and I don't always look at comments particularly not on social media but for some reason I did on this one and the first comment was from someone who went to school with you and said the loveliest things about you and said you were so you were always so lovely and kind at school and it's so wonderful to see you succeed. What were you like how do you recall school? I mean this is probably not popular but I loved to school. Tissue. School loved you. Nobody ever says that stuff, but I loved school.

15:11I think I was an only child and I was sort of vivacious and enthusiastic. And at school, I got to be around my friends and I got to be around people. And I think I just found it fascinating and fun. And I think I was quite a hard worker and I wasn't popular at school. I wasn't and I wasn't sort of nerdy or bullied or excluded. I was one of those really in between people. I ended up being head girl at my school and I went to my local comprehensive, you know, so that that meant, you know, you were sort of voted for by your teachers in your sixth form at your school.

16:00Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry company, seniority skills. And did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend$250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started at linkedin.com slash campaign. Terms and conditions apply. Eczema isn't always obvious, but it's real. And so is the relief from EBCLIS.

16:37After an initial dosing phase, about 4 in 10 people taking EBCLIS achieved itch relief and clear or almost clear skin at 16 weeks. And most of those people maintain skin that's still more clear at one year with monthly dosing. EBCLIS, LibriKizumab, LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called atopic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies.

17:06EBCLIS can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you're allergic to EBCLIS. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have new or worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with EBCLIS. Before starting EBCLIS, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Searching for real relief? Ask your doctor about Epglis and visit epglis.lily.com or call 1-800-LILY-RX or 1-800-545-5979.

17:33When did making plans get this complicated? It's time to streamline with WhatsApp, the secure messaging app that brings the whole group together. Use polls to settle dinner plans, send event invites and pin messages so no one forgets mom's 60th, And never miss a meme or milestone. All protected with end-to-end encryption. It's time for WhatsApp. Message privately with everyone. Learn more at whatsapp.com. We've spoken about your father, and I'm just aware that I'd really like to speak about your mother, just to give her equal billing. And I get a strong sense of her already from someone who took you to ballet classes, and that was important.

18:11What's she like? Oh, my mum. She is wonderful. She's one of the best friends in life that I have. And she is hardworking. She was a nurse when I was growing up, working really hard and creative and artistic. And I think she would have probably loved to have had more of a creative life than she did in some ways. That wasn't really accessible to her. And she's always supported me, but she's never pushed me. I think, you know, I've always, she would often worry that I was taking on too much. So she's always really given me confidence. And your parents split up when you were very, very young. Yes.

18:52So would it be fair to describe her as a single mother or was your father? Yes, no, 100%. I grew up pretty much with my mum and I saw my dad regularly, but they, I don't really remember them together. I think there is that quite intense only child, single mum, mother-daughter vibe, which is that you certainly as you get a bit older, you sort of become a team. And I realise now as I get older that it's quite intense. Like I think it's maybe more intense than some other dynamics that you might have if you've got siblings or if there's a dad in the house on a daily basis. Yes. What an amazing woman.

19:31And I just I can't even imagine how proud your parents must be. I mean, to see you thrive in the way that you are. Oh, yeah. No, they are really still supportive. And I think they keep me grounded as well. You know, there's certain things you go home and, you know, certain things that don't change and they treat me exactly the same. So before we get onto your second failure, you are redirected into acting and you end up at RADA. Yes. Yes. What was Radha like? I was 17 when I auditioned and I got in when I was 18 and I'd never left home before. So a lot of people that were there were maybe 21, had been to university and I came straight from my A-levels.

20:14In fact, I came straight from Japan because I was doing National Youth Music Theatre in Japan. Oh my goodness. And when I got the call from my mum on the landline from the hostel that we were staying at in Japan with the youth theatre company to say that I'd got in and I only had sort of two weeks after I got back from this Japan tour to sort of move to London and I had nowhere to live. I ended up living in a hostel that was run by nuns in Marylebone. Like it was so sort of, I realise now probably I was young to go there, but I was quite determined. And, you know, and I just sort of figured it out.

20:52And I think so many people at RADA had much more life experience than I did. For RADA, you kind of, it was like a 12 hour day, like nearly every day, you know. And I think for me, coming straight from school, that wasn't as hard to get into because I'd already been doing so many extracurricular things. So, yeah, I mean, I loved RADA. It was very much a theatre training. You know, there wasn't, certainly when I was there, there was a sort of TV term course in the second year. But it was very much like you were just recording a scene with a friend. And considering how much film and television I've actually done in my career, the technique of all of that I learned on the job.

21:39I mean, I remember the first or third round audition. I remember the sort of deputy head of RADA at the time, who's not there anymore, said, don't smile so much. You shouldn't smile so much. And I remember that really was sort of, and I hadn't even got in yet, but that was a really weird thing to say. And I thought, oh, that's, I didn't know I was smiling. and is that wrong and what does that mean but I and perhaps a rather blunt thing to say to an 18 year old but I think I was just so enthusiastic and I think perhaps what he was really trying to get at was that kind of put keeping the lid on the bubbling pot thing of you know and again very English kind of restraint withholding something or having that that secret underneath is more mysterious perhaps and more interesting as a performer than just being so thrilled to be there and giving everything away.

22:37That's fascinating, but I'm still hung up on the hostel run by nuns. Sorry. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yes. What do you want to know? How are we there for? What was it like? Well, you know, I got there, I got to RADA, and as I say, I had two weeks before it started, term started. I had nowhere to live in London and they don't have unlike university there's no halls of residence you're just in London figuring it out super expensive super expensive and there was the bursar Pat Myers who was a legend you know she I got a scholarship to go there as well and you know so we were going through okay I've got a scholarship but now I need somewhere to live and she was going through the list of sort of dig the digs list or whatever and then she's like well wait a minute I you're Catholic aren't you?

23:21And I was like well I yes I mean kind of I went to you know Catholic primary school and she's like well if you're Catholic there is there is a hostel in Marylebone and there is another girl in your year called Amy who also needs somewhere to live just for the first term or the first few weeks you could be roommates there and if you become friendly you can then get get a house together or whatever so so yeah it was in Marylebone in quite a bougie area I now realize but it was it was run by nuns I mean the problem was there was a there was a curfew and it was so early it was something like you had to be back at like 11 and I was 18 just moved to London I mean every weekend I was kipping on somebody's sofa because I didn't get home in time my friend Amy one time had to break me in to the hostel um getting back too late I mean it was kind of kind of it sounds so I guess naive and sort of idyllic now we would walk along New Cavendish Street from Marylebone to Rada every day it was always a temporary measure and I think it was just until I sort of found my feet in London as a teenager and I mean I'm still really good friends with Amy to this day we shared a room and everything and and by Christmas I'd figured it out and I joined a flat share in North London with some third years and then I was away I was you know living in a different apartment every six months pretty much but but it was an amazing start I think to to being in central London because as I say I could walk everywhere and apart from not being able to to to come home like crazy late at night it was sort of it was sort of an enchanted time really yeah failure to be a nun is not one of your failures however the next failure is your failure to be a painter yes yes tell me why you picked this one It's because alongside the love of acting and dancing, I really was obsessed with art growing up.

25:21And I think I sort of was at school and did my GCSEs along the time of the young British artists, Tracy Emin and, you know, Damien Hirst and Jenny Saville, who really caught my eye, who was just painted these figures that were so fleshy and, you know, like Lucian Freud, kind of meaty human flesh and bodies. And I just found that such a compelling way to express yourself through painting. I just thought it was real and it wasn't trying to be beautiful. And I, again, I tried to get into goldsmiths actually to do drama because of them, because of the Young British artists and because of that whole scene.

26:07And I thought, and they rejected me. but I also just I loved painting because it sort of and I didn't really realize it at the time but it gave me a headspace to to go into where I would really sort of lose track of time I guess I now sort of know that as the flow state or you know and essentially a very focused but challenging but flowy state of mind and but I knew I I knew I could be very solitary when I was painting and and drawing and I didn't need anybody and and somehow acting felt like it would bring me out of myself a bit more so I sort of even though I I knew I was sort of talented at art I sort of let it go and I sort of pursued acting and so it wasn't really until the pandemic where I kind of, I couldn't act anymore.

27:01I was in the middle of filming Loki, first season of Loki in Atlanta. And we were on hiatus for five months in the end. And I was digging out an old cupboard and I found a set of paints and a, you know, that had been neglected. And I just started painting. And it felt like it was my creative expression in that time of having all of this creative energy that couldn't go anywhere with the acting. And so I sort of sprung a leak back into painting. And it had been years since I'd done it. And I really had this very focused several months of doing portraits of my friends and doing portraits of, you know, figures in culture and in the news and things that were really just inspiring me at that time.

27:49And it just reminded me of that focus that I had and just what a sort of therapeutic experience it was to paint. You mentioned there that you started off painting pictures from, I think it was your phone library for family and friends. Yes. And then your attention was drawn to the news. Yes. And specifically Black Lives Matter. That's right. And the horrendous and tragic murder of George Floyd. And you painted a portrait of him and then of other people, Breonna Taylor. Yes. And what was it about them that made it important for you to paint their faces? Well, I was painting every day at that point, you know, and I was in the rhythm of sitting down and painting.

28:34And as you said, you know, from my camera roll of friends that I wanted to see but couldn't see because we were, you know, all so isolated at the time. And then I think in that time, it was such a crazy time, but such a focused time as well. And I felt like seeing that murder that happened and, you know, all the imagery around it, the most natural way for me to process it was to paint it. It just felt like that was a way also of slowing down everything that was seemingly happening in the world and just this veil that had been pulled across or away from the idea of America and the idea of the world we're living in and actually just the cracks beneath all of that were being revealed.

29:26And so for me, it was sort of a way to process that and also just slow time down and sort of metabolize those ideas whilst we couldn't leave our homes. We couldn't really walk along the street and people would cross the street to avoid you if you were just taking your daily walk. I mean, it was such a bizarre time. But it was also an opportunity, I think, for me to sort of raise awareness for that issue. You know, I auctioned some of the paintings for those charities and it just felt like a way to be active, creatively active in a time when we were, you know, so separate from each other. I think you put that so beautifully.

30:07And I wonder if part of it also is when someone finds themselves at the center of a news story and then a global movement, you can sometimes forget their individuality almost. They become a political moment rather than a human person. And I think that your portraits, from what I've seen of them online, really did such a profound job of giving them back their individuality. Oh, well, thank you. Yeah, I hadn't thought of it in that way, but I think there is something about portraiture. It's kind of weird and unnatural, the intensity of which you will look at somebody when you're going to paint them.

30:49You would never look at somebody that intensely or for that long in real life. staring at an image staring at somebody's face for sort of four hours you would never do that it's too weird it's too intense but to be able to do that it's it's intimate it's like a connection with that person you see the details the grooves in their eyes and their forehead and the light how the light catches in their irises and all of those kind of details in a way like acting it's you know you are still kind of painting a portrait of somebody just you're using you're not using a brush it's not going onto paper or a canvas you are using yourself it's a portrait of a character that you're creating so I sort of see the link of that you know the the psychology of somebody and and what makes them tick and and how their face can tell a story I think they're sort of connected in a way.

31:42Have you ever painted a self-portrait? Not for ages I used to do that a lot when I was when I was doing my art A-level I had a massive self-portrait that I did of myself kind of in a box like trying to push out of this box I think and it was such a big a big portrait and I was like naked in this or nude in this box and yeah it was so big I didn't even take it home because it wouldn't have fitted in our house so I think it still belongs it's still at the school or I if they recycled it or I just left it in the art block in the end. Isn't it interesting that I started your introduction saying that you defy categorization as an actor and there's this clearly this recurring theme this part of you which is like don't box me in.