Marisa Abela - ‘You never expect to be told you have cancer at 23’

0:00This month, we are partnering with Pink Lady Apples. Hello and welcome to How To Fail. This is the podcast that believes failure is not a verdict on your character. Rather, it's how you respond to it that counts. Before we get started on this conversation, please do remember to subscribe and follow so that you never miss a single episode. The truth is the first ever read through of Industry. Season one, I was so nervous. I was cast last. What was slightly difficult about Back to Black was that there were paparazzi on set whilst we were filming. Went for the biopsy, got a phone call a couple of weeks later saying it is cancer.

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2:56That's 15 % off at masterclass.com slash fail. masterclass.com slash fail. My guest today is an award-winning actor who booked the part that would change her life in her final year of drama school. That part was a role in a new ensemble show set against the febrile backdrop of London's financial district. It followed the lives of a group of new graduate interns at a prestigious investment bank. It was called Industry and it became a critically acclaimed smash hit for HBO and the BBC at the same time as making today's guest, Marisa Abella, a star. Abela's portrayal of Yasmin, a troubled, ambitious young woman with some serious daddy issues, won her plaudits and a leading actress BAFTA.

3:48It also caught the attention of some high-profile directors. She went on to star as Amy Winehouse in the Sam Taylor-Johnson directed Back to Black, and Steven Soderbergh cast her in the spy thriller Black Bag. Now Abela returns for the hotly anticipated fourth season of Industry. Abela grew up near Brighton and won a drama scholarship to Rodine School. Her mother, Caroline, was an actor who encouraged her daughter to consider the same career after seeing her in a school play, aged 13. Abela failed her first audition for RADA, so spent a gap year cleaning coral on a sustainability programme in Fiji, then re-auditioned and got in.

4:32Still only 29, she has racked up an impressive resume. but has never forgotten that earlier failure. And yet, as she says now, at a certain point, the regret of not doing a thing is worse than the fear of rejection. Marisa Abella, welcome to How to Fail. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. Gosh, that's cool. I'm so delighted you're here. It's the first time I've mentioned coral cleaning in Fiji in an introduction. Oh my God, I know. It sounds so intense whenever I hear it back like that. my boyfriend at the time had gotten it we both auditioned at the same time we're both doing our a-levels at the same time we both auditioned for drama school he got into Guildhall and I didn't get into any of them and I was so mortified and embarrassed that I hadn't gotten in that I think I was just like I have to leave the country yeah because I was so ashamed I wanted to sort of make it seem I think like oh well everything happens for a reason I'm going to go do this amazing thing so I chose the most extra thing I could possibly do and I remember sort of standing on the front of the ship that takes you from mainland Fiji to like this little island that I was cleaning coral on and being like what the I was like a good 12 hours ahead of all my friends and family I was like uh-oh but it was really fun well what's the secret to cleaning coral I mean, literally, you're just sort of going around cleaning coral with a toothbrush.

6:08Wow. Because they overfish, so the fish can't clean the coral and the coral dies and all that. And then I came back and got obsessed with applying to drama school again, but, you know. And you got in. I got in. The New Yorker named Industry their best TV show of 2024. Yeah. Whilst that's great, does it also put an element of pressure on? Do you feel like you can take fewer creative risks? well no I don't feel like that and I don't think any of us do I think that's one of the magic things about the show is that like we're it's quite sort of experiment experimental in the sense that none of us are that vain or precious about our performances it's pretty wild on set which I love but I do think the only fear I have is is that the reason people loved it so much is is partly because they got to discover it for themselves and decide for themselves that this is something that's good.

7:08Like anything, I think when people are told something's great, then they start to be like, well, actually. And we haven't had that much well-actualies with industry because of the way that it started as a kind of cult favourite. So I just hope people still are able to feel that it's theirs. I think as a show as well, it does a great job of painting this portrayal of privilege, but also showing how pain can exist within that privilege. Oh yeah, for sure. And we were chatting before we started recording about our shared love of reality TV. My favourite subject. Thank goodness. I've actually saved the last two episodes of both Beverly Hills and Salt Lake for my flight that I'm about to take because I'm like, that's four hours done.

7:56You have a treat in store. Thank you. and this might sound like a facetious question but I don't intend it to be at all I feel that I can see the vernacular of the real housewives and below deck actually in industry yeah yeah well Mickey loves one of the writers loves Bravo but also I mean sometimes Mickey will come up to me and be like when we're working and be like what franchise are you watching right now I'll be like New Jersey and he's like stop Right, yeah, yeah. You're not getting what you need for your methods from New Jersey. Right, it's so like, really Teresa. There was one scene in, I think it's season two, with Kenny, played by Connor McNeil, where he comes to collect Yasmin outside of a private equity meeting.

8:43And I'm like, I have a real go at him. And I've got my sort of finger in his face. And it's quite gangster. And after that, Mickey came up to me and was like, stop with New Jersey. That's hilarious. You know, it is funny because of these, I mean, for me at least, I get very affected by what I'm like reading, listening to, watching. So I have to be careful a little bit with Housewives when I'm working. I mean, before we get derailed entirely, because I could spend the entire podcast talking about this. No, please don't apologise. That was totally me. Let's get onto your failures. because we were touching now on the idea of privilege on paper, not necessarily translating to one's soul.

9:28And your first failure is your failure to be an interesting teenager, which is brilliant. When you were a teenager, you got this drama scholarship to a posh school, basically. And I just wonder if you could tell me what kind of teenager you were like before we get on to whether you were interesting or not. Well, I was 11, obviously, when I got into, it's Rodine that I went to. and they kind of had a I guess a kind of like outreach vibe at the time where they were going to local primary schools and trying to get local girls to apply for scholarships or bursaries at the school and my mum and I decided that it would be a good thing for me to do I was bright for my little school but obviously it was a very expensive school my mum was a single parent She was working in a call centre at the time for my brother and me.

10:22So she couldn't have afforded the tuition. So it had to be that way. So I got in with this drama and dance scholarship anniversary. And I became so obsessed with the ways in which I was different to these girls. and that my upbringing compared to theirs that I just rebelled so intensely so I started school my mum's pretty RP my mum was an actress she went to Central so she has like kind of RP accent received pronunciation like you know and I was kind of sounded like that when I went and then I went the opposite way so I started like properly talking like I didn't want to sound like these girls because I because I didn't naturally sound quite as posh as they did so I went the other way started hanging out with like a pretty it was you know like kids that would like take a lot of drugs and stuff like that at the weekends when I instead of hanging out with these girls because they didn't fully accept me and my family for who we were when I you know stuff like they never invited my mum to dinners that the mums went on but partly because my mum didn't have a partner and it was always the mums and dads that had dinners and partly because I don't know maybe they thought it was the places that they went were too expensive stuff like that so it was I was mortified you know I remember they came sometimes once they came around to my I invited people around to my house and they stood in my hallway and sort of held hands like this to see how it was so funny that like only five of them could go from the first from one side of the house to the other and I was so embarrassed that I became and this is the origin that's the origin story and the reason I sort of go into it so intensely is because I then became like a terror and I was not nice to be around at all and and when I say I failed to be an interesting teenager I guess what I mean is like I failed to be a kind of a nice teenager I just didn't want to say that because I feel bad for my sort of teenage self.

12:39But also, I think it wasn't interesting. I was just so interested in what people thought about me. My first failure, I think, is just my teenage years. Those experiences really do go deep. Yeah. And I had not entirely the same thing, but I grew up in the north of Ireland, didn't pick up the accent, went into secondary school, didn't fit in, found it very difficult just because I spoke the way that I do. Yeah. And then I got a scholarship to a boarding school in England. Right. Where because I sound the way that I do, I was accepted, but I still didn't fit in. Right. And I read something that you said, which I really related to, that idea of code switching.

13:20Yeah. You become very used to adopting one persona and one way of speaking with one group and then switching. So looking back now, do you feel like you had any friends who understood you? I did. and this is like the kind of confusing thing about it I'd say sort of like year seven year eight yeah the first half of year nine were very very difficult for me I was embarrassed of my home life and I was embarrassed of like there was a lot of shame and then and then everything changed when I sort of was about 14 and then I became kind of I wouldn't say popular because I don't think anyone really I don't know other than my my close few of friends I think people I had a bit of a reign of terror for a while at my school if I'm being honest like it's never cool to say that you were like not nice that as a teenager but like there was one girl in particular that had been quite intense about my my house and my childhood my my sort of family for a while and I just turned and when I turned and was like I and I didn't accept it anymore to put it nicely I became kind of like I guess kind of that figure in the year and I was for want of another word popular but not in like the way that I would have loved to be I was yeah I kind of ruled with an iron fist you were powerful I was power I was I became quite powerful 14 to sort of 16 at least 17 those terrible years for anyone yeah i was i yeah do you know what i think this is first of all this is incredibly self-aware of you to understand this about yourself as a teenager when you're you haven't yet turned 30 i haven't no i haven't and secondly i think lots of people listening to this will either relate or find it incredibly helpful in terms of understanding the minds of their teenage children because it sounds to me as you're expressing it that what you were doing was about survival it was totally about survival I felt like in order to not be like the weakest link in the herd I had to become like the alpha and it was an all-girls school had to become like an out the alpha female I was like oh I have to be the most something like I can't just kind of get by like if I want to survive and be successful in my environment I need to completely excel at whatever it is I'm trying to do and that definitely still exists within me that feeling but I wish that like I had been able to just sort of sit back and relax a bit more but it served me well I then as that person was like well I think I started from that age manifesting without realizing it to thinking you know well why not why why can't I why wouldn't I get into Radha people were giving me the numbers you know four thousand five thousand people apply and twenty people get in and I was like well so twenty people get in and I think that you have to have that mindset a little bit as an actor because otherwise the numbers are too terrifying why would anyone do it you no matter what people say you have to believe in some way that like you can be the person to get that job but fascinating because there is I relate to that in terms of being a writer of books right right right a friend of mine said you know people who write books and particularly novels have to be at some level a monstrous narcissist exactly because you have to believe that it's worth you spending all of this time away from your family away from your friends to write this thing that you think other people need to read.

17:09Yeah, exactly. And at the same time, I feel you and I are probably both riven with insecurities because we're so sensitive about how people then respond to what we put out in the world. So it's this really interesting mix. What were you like at home, though? Also a terror. Were you? Have you spoken to your mum about it since? Yes, I mean, lots. It's difficult because my mum and I are so close now. My mum's like, you know, one of the most important people in my life and she means everything to me. And I also now know that she is so strong and so amazing and brought me up with such sort of like tenderness and love, but also like ferocity.

17:53You know, a single mother with two children under four at the beginning and just like made it work. But there was a time where the power, as you put it, became kind of like, I was then searching for the boundary of this power. Like, when is someone going to tell me to stop? And it wasn't going to be my mum. That's just not who she is as a person. It was a friend of mine in the end. I think that was the most important lesson that I learned. I ended up snapping at one of my best friends and she didn't take it and she sort of walked away from me for a while and that broke my heart because my mom is one of those people that was like I love you unconditionally unfortunately I love you unconditionally I don't know what you want me to say and it was like I needed some conditions some boundaries and this friend of mine obviously it wasn't for my benefit it was for hers but was had a boundary she was like uh no and that changed things for me I was like okay that's a line I can't talk to my friends like that I probably shouldn't talk to my mum like that actually you know what I mean and my mum also had me at 40 so and I'm sure she wouldn't mind me saying this oh I love that yeah yeah no she's but I'm sure she wouldn't mind me saying this we were probably going through her menopause and my first periods at the same time so it was about it wasn't just me like we were both pretty fiery you mentioned that your mom raised you and your brother from when you were four I think yeah and your your parents got divorced so was your dad on the scene and able to give boundaries he was on the scene I saw him every weekend but when I was 14 my dad moved to Manchester okay so I think that probably had something also to do with the like shift in I just maybe I should maybe I should shout louder and then like he'll be able to hear me all the way over there it's so it's so silly because we were very close but I the only person I probably never really shouted at he might say it's this isn't true but it is the only person and I've never really lost my temper at, probably is my dad.

20:15And we're very close now. But I think when my dad left, I just became like, oh, well, now I can do sort of whatever I want. And maybe he'll come back to tell me off, which wouldn't be a bad thing. But also, if he doesn't, then he doesn't. And I can just do whatever I want. It was, yeah, it was, you could not pay me to go back to being 14. I'm sure most people would say that but I was a very sort of angry teenager Can you still access that teenage power sometimes when you need to for a role? Yeah, I mean I think anger is something that I go to quite often in my work and actually I think it's important for me to really interrogate when a character would lose their temper because I think I have a shorter fuse maybe than most of the characters that I play, except for Yasmin.

21:27I was about to say, wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. I don't get that angry anymore. but it's definitely this it's something that I have the capacity for for sure yeah and you know how it feels is sadness where you went with Amy Winehouse is that something that you saw in her yeah yeah for sure sadness is something that I'm getting better at as an actor now um I actually think even since unfortunately but that's how this life works as well but sadness is an interesting one because it can be a passive emotion I think that's why I found it quite difficult I used to find it very hard at drama school the activation in sadness that makes it interesting to watch is the thing that is really like a technically brilliant thing uh because I think for me sadness shuts me down and I go numb and that is not you know if you're sort of in first circle and you're not sharing anything with an audience, it's not particularly interesting to watch.

22:36So finding, like, the activity in sadness has been, you know, a kind of, like, recent exploration for me as an actor and it's, Back to Black was really useful for it. My final question on this failure is you talked about that experience at Rodine where you became fixated on what other people were thinking of you and how to control that. Yeah. Now that you are an actor who's taken on such high profile material and everyone had an opinion about industry, everyone had an opinion about Amy Winehouse, how do you handle how you're perceived on a wider scale? Do you have good boundaries for yourself?

23:22No, unfortunately not really. It's funny, people, I would never say that I'm like a people pleaser. I don't think I am because my issue has never really been whether people like me as a person because I know, you know, who I am and the people that I love do. But as an actor, you know, the ultimate goal is people saying, I love your work. So when people don't, it's incredibly hard. I don't know how people don't find that hard. The sadness that comes with people not enjoying something that you've created is like is it's devastating and I don't think it ever won't be I don't know what do you think I love that you said that I totally relate yeah I mean it's not on the level that you experience obviously yeah but a commitment to creating something and a commitment to meaningful for conversation and communication at its fundamental it's it all comes from my desire to connect yeah yeah and if I feel like I haven't connected in the way that brings enlightenment or illumination or joy then it then that is so upsetting yeah if someone and sometimes it feels like someone's willfully misinterpreting right but I've come to the conclusion that it's better to connect on any level even if someone hates a book i write yeah it's better to have elicited that response than none at all yeah yeah because at least they're feeling something totally so that's i think my own tactic and i don't read reviews anymore i'm actually so proud of myself for not reading yeah even though i know of the existence of negative reviews i refuse to read them because i refuse to surrender that power i completely agree what was slightly difficult about Back to Black was that there were paparazzi on set whilst we were filming so the feedback to that was immediate and I had to go back into work the next day and carry on filming even though you know pictures were coming out day by day and and there was a negative reaction to it online that was incredibly difficult and sort of took me into a kind of trance-like state I think about they're like okay I just got to keep going keep going and I don't you know similar to people that you know if you're doing a play and it's getting terrible reviews and you've got to go in every night and keep doing that play that you know people in the audience have read are terrible so they're coming in with a kind of bias or right it's just so hard that's I think that's harder Yeah.

26:08And the cruel irony of you playing this woman hounded by a culture that refused to allow themselves to understand her. And then you were experiencing that in real time. Yeah, totally. It must have been so difficult and well done for getting through it. It was so difficult. And what was funny was that in the press or afterwards, people were like, a lot of the stuff was about how far we've come as a culture from that point. And of course, like, we have. But the truth is, it was very difficult for me to not get angry, actually, in those moments. Sometimes I think, are you kidding me? Like, it was really hard to, I mean, the paparazzi as well, mostly men.

26:52And they'd get right up in my face and say things, like almost heckling me while I was on set. It was, like, violent and it was horrible. and I felt like I wasn't really didn't want to talk about it at the time because it I understand obviously it paled in comparison to everything that Amy went through but at the same time I was like guys can you not see the irony of this situation and how how horrible it is that you're doing this to me when this is what we're sort of making this this story about um it's taken me a while to be proud of that film and to be proud of my work in it but I am now partly for just doing it whilst I was whilst that was all happening I do think bravery is an incredibly important you know skill I don't know if I would call it like an innate gift I don't think it is really but a skill that an actor has to learn and like I learned it like by fire on on that job I used to get so stressed planning holidays time away is so valuable and I'd panic about choosing the wrong destination, getting lost on public transport or feeling like I'd miss the heart of the place entirely.

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28:47So visit explore.co.uk, avoid any more holiday fails, and don't just travel, explore. This week on Lipstick on the Rim, we sat down with the one and only Rachel Zoe and wow, this episode is a ride. We talked about everything, motherhood, divorce, finding herself again, joining Real Housewives literally overnight. And then she said this. Can I tell you a true story? In COVID, in the darkness of COVID, I had a cat eye every single day where nobody saw me, not one soul. And when I had COVID, not even my ex-husband saw me or my children. And you know what I did? I went in to my bathroom. I did a black liquid liner, put on lashes, black liner in the waterline, a full lip, did my hair and sat in my bed.

29:47And that is what I did. And I looked at myself and I said, you are not a well person. I said, are you fucking okay? You have 104 fever. You are like, you are like contagion right now. If you love fashion, beauty or Bravo, this Rachel Zoe episode is a must. It's out now. Well, let's move on to your second failure. And I'm sorry, because it's not an upbeat shift in tempo. But this is such an important one. And I really admire the way that you phrased it. And as you put it, failure to use my health crisis as a way to become a better person. Now, take us back to 2020 when you weren't feeling well.

30:29What happened? So I thought I had COVID. I probably did have COVID, to be honest. But I just wasn't getting better. And my memory was slightly foggy and I couldn't really get out of bed. and I was putting on lots of weight and I wasn't sure what was happening so I called NHS 111 which was obviously a bit of a nightmare and at that time anyway and I remember them asking me for my phone number on the phone and I couldn't remember it and I burst into tears and I said this is part of the problem I can't remember anything I don't know what's going on I've got this intense brain frog and the problem is is that you know brain fog was a symptom of COVID and all that so everyone was like oh you'll probably be fine whatever but this nice lady on NHS 111 was like I'm gonna give you an emergency referral to Paddington and a doctor will just see you and you'll be fine so I went to Queen Mary Hospital and they were feeling around and they were like you do have a swollen lymph node they said in your neck but you probably it's probably because you're fighting off a virus come back in a couple weeks if it's still there and I went home and I felt it and I thought my god like that is massive what is going on and then so I just I booked a private ultrasound it was like 50 quid I was like yeah whatever I'm gonna do it went to um yeah went to some private ultrasound clinic still sent me texts actually and the guy did an ultrasound on my neck and I could just feel he kind of froze up and you know there are all these different classifications of essentially tumours and this one was like it was pretty clear that it was not a great one even just probably the ultrasound gave me a referral to go back onto the NHS to have a biopsy and that's what I did by that point I decided to go back to Brighton to stay with my mum who's still living in my childhood home at the time and so I could do everything there because it was locked down and all that kind of stuff went for the biopsy got a phone call a couple weeks later saying it is cancer and it was it was like weirdly like a happy and sad phone call at the same time because he's like it is cancer but I'm an oncologist and my job is telling people they have cancer like every day and if I could choose to tell them that they had any cancer it would be this one and I was like oh oh I could then which was it was so weird and obviously you never expect to get to be told that you have cancer at 23 and no matter how nice the cancer is or whatever and it was on my thyroid and I was aware um that that was potentially going to like cause hormonal issues throughout my life then and that was very scary just the aftermath of the whole thing was scary to me I had to have a total thyroidectomy and I think like 19 lymph nodes removed from the side of my neck so I don't have a working I don't have a thyroid anymore it was an eight hour surgery and it was in the middle of COVID so I had to go in on my own no one could come with me for most of my appointments as well but for my surgery I was on my own and I was put in the burns unit for recovery because there weren't enough beds in the ICU um so it was it was a really 2020 was bleak for me that's so traumatic yeah yeah it was traumatic but I knew I was ill I could tell something was really wrong and then I just switched into like get it out get it out mode and am I going to be able to speak again that was the scariest thing because they had to go through a lot of nerves to get to my thyroid and one of the things was you know I had to sign a form that said if they cut the nerve that's attached to my vocal my my voice box I'm not gonna you know sue them or whatever so I I remember when I woke up the first thing I did was go ma because I just wanted to make sure I could talk yeah and I was like I remember saying to the doctor I know I know I've signed this but please if it looks dodgy and you think you're gonna have to don't wake me up and we'll figure out another way I'll do you know you don't have to do chemo or anything for that kind of thing but I was like I'll do whatever just don't go through so there were it was bleak but you know it's everything else that comes with it that's I was thinking about like would I be able to be an actor would I be able to speak will anyone employ me with a big scar on my neck you know you have all these vanity things as well uh it was the first time at 23 I thought really about am I gonna want to have children and does this affect that and like at the time I went this is going to change who I am as a person and I am going to become a saint I think I think that's the right thing to do and obviously I didn't and you kind of don't change at all I mean maybe people do um and maybe if you have a slightly closer brush with your mortality rather than just like your sort of state of perfection as a healthy young person then it does affect you more but it didn't you know it didn't really affect my I really thought I was going to come out on the other side and be like so much better and so much wiser and so much more like grateful to just be alive and grateful for my body and grateful for and it you know that probably lasted about about six months it's funny when hearing you talk about that because in a way you were experiencing this through covid and for many of us the pandemic was a bit like that too there were yeah all of these conversations about how everything would change forever yeah and actually we've sort of forgotten about it completely back to normal yeah but maybe you have to kind of forget to carry on living as a flawed human i completely agree what are you going to do for the rest of your life sort of think of yourself as like a a glass thing or or also you know not be human part of being human is being you know slightly having like a tiny little sprinkling of all of the sinfulness because that is what it is and that all of the good things are the things that make you you and all of the bad things are the things that make you you and to lose all of the bad things I mean I certainly wouldn't be who I am.

37:18Has it changed how you feel about your body? I mean that was kind of one of the main things I hoped it would do um not that like I've had you know I have a particularly terrible relationship with my body or anything but like I'm hard on myself like I think all of us are especially as an actor I have to see myself all the time and it has changed my relationship to my body and the fact that like my number one thing now is that I'm healthy and I am you know when I think about food and stuff like that it's about like healthy choices not just sort of skinny choices for want of a better word but it hasn't quite done enough in the sense that like of course I'm still slightly vain and I want to look good and it's a difficult one because the thyroid is one of the hormones that you need to stay your metabolism to be working so it's been a lot more difficult for me since the illness and and the and the aftermath of it to stay fit at the beginning I was like I'm gonna have peace with my body now and what's difficult is that obviously now I'm like actually I have to sort of work harder to maintain a sort of a healthy um physique yeah you want to be a sort of perfect person afterwards and it's so stupid you know yeah as if what's it taught you about instinct this experience I mean it's taught me so much about uh women's health I'll say that it's taught me so much about the way that we are told constantly you're probably fine it's probably normal I just would say to any women especially a young woman because you're told that like you're perfect as a young woman and everything starts to get tricky when you get older but if you think something's wrong insist on the fact that something's wrong and then you know if you turn out to be wrong sorry yes what's the worst that can happen what's the worst that could happen And don't let anyone bully you into thinking that it's normal or it's going to work itself out in time or it's going to whatever.

39:27I think that we have, you know, a month as women where things go up and down and round and round and your body and your mind and everything is just telling you all the time. We have about a week in the month where we're like pretty normal. so of course it's it's it's kind it's normal to think that something that's abnormal is normal but there's a difference and when something shifts slightly and you think I don't know actually if this is just just follow that instinct I really I really do believe that like your body has a way of telling you that something's actually wrong and like listen to it I'm so struck by what you say there that women for want of a better word have kind of been gaslit by a predominantly male medical profession for so many centuries and you know I went through a lot of fertility treatment and that was certainly my experience was that I was overwhelmingly treated by male clinicians who have never had a period let alone understand what a miscarriage is or yeah and so what advice would you give to anyone who is struggling to get their voice heard women's health for me seems to be sort of private completely like it is the only thing on the nhs really where you can't it's very difficult to get a gynecological appointment and so it seems like a privilege to care about your health as a woman which is insane i mean you're not alone and you're not crazy for thinking that like people aren't listening to you and and that it's very difficult to get seen look up these are my symptoms who's best for me to see what kind of doctor should I be seeing what should I say when I go in yes um be going with armed with information because like no one's gonna no one's gonna help you as much as uh as you can sort of help yourself find out what to say and how to say it yeah because sometimes it's such an intimidating thing and we often the way that we've been raised is to revere medical professionals and defer to them and so often they are amazing and they are life-saving and they are extraordinary but it makes it quite nerve-wracking to know how to advocate for yourself for sure you recently got married i did congratulations and you've been with your husband for many years yeah was he with you through this he was yeah that must have been an immense help it was an immense help and it was it was I you know it was kind of one of the moments where I knew that this was the person I wanted to be with forever um I think it's equally as important to have someone that supports you when you're up as when you're down I don't think it's like just when someone's good at when things are bad Jamie is great at both he's there on like a red carpet with me when I'm really proud of my work and is like the number one person that's always like look how great she is but also when things aren't good he is right there and he looks after me and he is like the most supportive person in in every way and I'm so lucky that I you know and he was in my year at RADA so if I'd have gotten in the year before oh you see the coral the coral was meant to be um you know we got together although we went to drama school together we got together in our final year which was 2019 so 2020 was only a year into our relationship like I said I had to go into the hospital on my own and stuff but when I was let out a couple days later I really had a pretty gnarly scar and it was all the way from one side of my neck to the top of my ear the other side and it was stapled and it was bloody and it was intense and um um and he was just like you look so beautiful oh I know I'm so yeah happy for you you so deserve that yeah it's great 2019 was a big year then so um Jamie and you also got your part in industry yeah and is this right that two days after your final treatment for thyroid cancer the first episode of industry aired yeah so presumably that stage you still have that gnarly scar I looked crazy and I was in I mean you can't really see it because it was Covid thank God in a way for for my sake but like all of the press for industry season one was over zoom and in everything I've got a high neck on like a sort of some kind of collared shirt with a big bow or something because I have this big scar on my neck and all of the first photo shoots that I did at that time I had this big scar and it was a really awkward conversation with the makeup artists because you know do you want me to cover it or do you want to leave it now I leave it but it's also mostly it's healed now at the time it was like a pretty fresh scar so yes I wanted to cover it but also putting makeup on it was pretty intense for everyone so that was just a really weird and I was getting all these messages I started getting followers on Instagram for the first time ever but I was lying at home like taking medicine for the first time about something you know and it was such a I remember getting my first ever like approval for a photo shoot I did whilst I was in hospital like having just woke up I looked at my phone and there was this I did this first look at Marisa Rubella for Vogue and I had to like approve these photos and I was lying in hospital with like tubes sort of coming out of me during COVID in the burns unit.

45:13That's crazy. Yeah, that's what they'll do. That is crazy. Yeah. Your final failure is about industry, but I wonder before we get into the detail on that, this idea of your body being seen in one way, whether it's a photo shoot for Vogue or in industry, because so much of that first season was exploring Yasmin's sensuality. Yeah. And then certain tabloids picked up on that. And I imagine it felt very objectifying. Yeah. What an extraordinary disconnect that must have been for you. It really was. But at the same time, I do think that, weirdly, going through that experience did actually help in terms of what we were talking about before with the understanding that, like, perception versus reality is so stupid.

46:03And, like, I sort of, I really didn't care about what people were saying about that it was so it was so obvious to me that it had no meaning and um at the time of course I was so just grateful that everything went well and that I was healthy and that I was with my family and that and that was that was the truth of the time so it was great that people were enjoying the show it was whatever that people thought it you know there was one there was one sort of daily mail a thing I think that was like we didn't recognize you with your clothes on there was one thing about that with me and I for god's sake but also I really didn't care and also I did not judge my body at all when I watched it I didn't think oh I wish I looked like that I wasn't vain at all at that time I was really just like good for me yeah you know what I mean so yeah so yeah I guess I guess if it was ever going to happen it happened at the right time for me firstly I got to do it in privacy because everyone was locked down so although the hospital appointments were horrible as someone that otherwise my job is in the public eye I didn't have to experience I didn't have to experience that your final failure I mentioned that is your failure to make a good impression on your first ever day in industry what happened the truth is the first ever read through of industry season one I was so like I was so nervous I was cast last everyone else had done a chemistry day where they all got together and the girl that had been cut had maybe was going to be Yasmin at that point on that chemistry day they were like no wow brutal I um I don't know if I should say that but um there were other people too there were like three or there were two or three Roberts two I think the only person that there was one of was Harper and I think there were two or three Yasmin's but I was not one of them so I I hadn't met anyone and everyone else knew each other so of course I went into like over a compensation mode and I I think I had a bit of sort of like delayed trauma from everything we're speaking about with Rodine because Yasmin is like a very privileged girl and I was like what would she wear oh my gosh oh yeah I can just imagine yeah and I was not I I was a student I obviously was going to start earning money a bit in with industry but I did I was like most of my clothes were like I was I had been at RADA for three years I was in like leotards and leggings and flowy skirts and whatever so I went to Westfield because I lived in Shepherd's Bush at the time and I went straight to Louis Vuitton and I bought a pair of these trainers these like massive hype beastie trainers like not for someone not I don't know who they were for but they weren't for me and I was like these are perfect I spent the remainder of my student loan because I was still at RADA at the time and I hadn't been started getting paid yet for industry made my student loan on these trainers you know like 600 quid or something it was insane and I went to and I was like they're perfect right and even my flatmates were like yeah so then I wore them with these like little jeans and like a jumper and I went in and everyone without fail when they said hello to me did like a double take on my trainers everyone hey and it was just this little look down at my feet and I started getting more and more and more mortified so then on the train I was and I was sitting with the other cast of industry I was googling places in Cardiff that I could like an office in Cardiff where maybe I could go and get like a ballet pump or something or like I was so embarrassed and I thought okay if I tell people that I've got a cold and I've got to go and get a lem sip in town then I can go to the office and wear ballet pumps and maybe no one would have no one will say and I was so overthinking it that when I was on the train I wasn't really talking to anyone i wasn't like making friends with anyone and later harry lordsey was like i thought you were a real like you know can i say you can swear okay yeah i thought you were a real bitch because i just sat there in silence and i was just like noddling noddling along but he was like i just thought you were really like sussing us out and taking us in and i was like wow she's perfect casting for yasmin i really i was googling where i could get a normal pair of shoes you're so sweet so wait did you get a normal pair of shoes no because everyone had seen them already well that's even more embarrassing if everyone knows how much i care so i had to try and front it out you quite rightly won a bafta for your portrayal of yasmin crazy yeah what was it like it was insane industry hadn't been nominated for anything else at the baftas it was the only thing we were all there for other things were sort of sweeping up i i did not expect to win at all and it was a very last award and I was genuinely so shocked but so happy so proud so happy for the whole show what did your mother say to you I facetimed my mum when I came off stage and it was it's live but it's you know it's got a bit of a delay so they hadn't seen it yet oh oh gosh, what is this?

51:49And then I like showed her the factor and she just like burst into tears. And my mum is so incredibly proud of me. You know, I fought her for a long time on whether or not I should be an actor. We were actually on an open day at UCL when we walked past Gower Street, which is where RADA is. And my mum went in and got a flyer for me. And I was like, mum, it was so embarrassing. Like, you know, I can go to UCL. I'm a smart person but my mum knew that it was a thing that really lit me up and she always gave me the confidence that I could do it and I also think she wanted me to know that just because she had to work sometimes in a call centre or in other jobs it didn't mean that she was a failure as an actor that's what I you know I'm most grateful to her for for instilling you know not only the love of this industry and of the work in me but also the faith that it's all going to be okay and the knowledge that like if you get to do what you love no matter how often you get to do it or what it is that you're getting to do like you're not a you're not a failure you know what an amazing note to end on yeah we're so grateful to your mother too because without her persistence.

53:10We wouldn't all have the joy of seeing you bring the truth of humanity to our screens. And you're only just getting started. And I'm so excited about what the rest of your career will hold. But if we can end on a note for the industry fans, because I haven't asked you about season four, but I know also you can't really tell us. So I'm just going to ask you to give me three words that sum up Yasmin's journey in season four. No pressure. I'll do it like in order of what it is in this season. So I would say it starts with support. The middle is clock on, like that sort of switch that Yasmin gets in her eye, you know.

53:55Clock on can be a word. So support, clock on, and then domination. Oh, my gosh. Yes. Yes. Domination, we're leaning into the teenage power. Right, exactly. And Marisa Rubella again. Marisa, I've absolutely loved this conversation. You're such an old soul. It's been completely fascinating. Thank you so much for coming on How to Fail. Thanks so much for having me. Thank you so much for listening and watching. All episodes in January are brought to you by Pink Lady Apples. Please do follow How to Fail to get new episodes as they land on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you get your podcasts.

54:34Please tell all your friends. This is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment original podcast.