ON AMBITION… With GILLIAN ANDERSON AND MUNROE BERGDORF

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2:20Munroe Bergdorf:After you purchase,

2:21Gillian Anderson:they'll ask you where you heard about them. Please support our show and tell them we sent you.

2:26Munroe Bergdorf:Welcome back to How to Fail. This week, we're talking about ambition, the engine that drives us forward, the inner voice that tells us to keep going, and the shadow side that asks whether we've ever done enough. First, actor and Emmy winner Gillian Anderson reflects on being a self-confessed workaholic and the belief that she has to earn her place through constant effort. Highly relatable. We discuss pleasure as power, the guilt of not working, and how she balances fierce professional drive with parenthood and presence. Then model and fashion icon Munro Bergdorf shares how her ambition was forged through rejection and gatekeeping in the fashion industry.

3:08Munroe Bergdorf:From being treated as a gimmick to witnessing real change on the runway, she speaks about perseverance, representation and widening the path for others.

3:17Elizabeth Day:This is an episode about striving, self-worth,

3:20Munroe Bergdorf:and it asks whether ambition liberates us or quietly runs the show. First up, let's hear from Gillian Anderson.

3:32your final failure is your failure to not work are you a workolic yeah and where do you think

3:41Munroe Bergdorf:that comes from why do you feel that you need to work in order to earn your place on this planet

3:47Elizabeth Day:i don't quite know but i do have so i mean it's a like a protestant work ethic i'm not quite sure where it's come from. But what I do know is I feel incredibly lucky on the one hand. I mean, on all hands. I don't mean on the... Yeah, I'm incredibly lucky, incredibly fortunate, privileged, all of that, to have the choices that I have had both in my life and my career. And part of it, I think, is showing myself that I deserve it because I'm doing all these things, If all these good things are happening, then I'd better be working for them. You know, it's not coming lightly or it's not frivolous.

4:32Elizabeth Day:That's another thing, actually, that I wanted to talk about in terms of pleasure that I'm starting to realize, too, is that so much of pleasure is perceived as being frivolous. Yes.

4:45Munroe Bergdorf:Trivial.

4:45Elizabeth Day:Yeah. And why? Why isn't it as much of a sense of power, you know, to lean into that, to properly embrace pleasure and make space for it and make time for it and give it to oneself as it is the other things that we. And so I'm, you know, I'm trying to have more of that in my life, but also realizing the degree to which so much of what I'm involved in, whether it's, you know, this drink or one of the shows that I work on or etc. is about pleasure and the joy and pleasure. Anyway, I digress. I think you're so right about pleasure because why can't it be as ennobling, as transformative, as suffering or sadness or pain?

5:33Elizabeth Day:Yeah.

5:33Munroe Bergdorf:Because it's the same thing, but the different end of the spectrum.

5:36Elizabeth Day:Yeah, exactly. I mean, actually, I do feel like even though I am a self-described workaholic, I do get pleasure from it. I do get pleasure from that. When I'm clear, it turns out when I'm not eating prawn crackers and drinking Coca-Cola, I think quite clearly and things come to me. I'm in a moment right now where, and I'm sure that a lot of it has to do with my age and it's none of wanting to leave a mark. It's none of that. It's just it is feeling like, hang on, I've still got some things to do. I've still got things to do that I didn't even know I wanted to do. And that is, of course, in roles and building a company that I'm building.

6:20Elizabeth Day:But it's also just in terms of realising that I do have a few things that I want to share with people.

6:26Munroe Bergdorf:And have you ever regretted working too hard or taking on a project?

6:34Elizabeth Day:There have been a couple moments when I haven't been able to stop around my kids. You know, that had more to do with not in terms of my work as an actor, but stuff on the side or with other projects and stuff where I have felt the guilt of choosing to focus on those things instead of having time with kids. And I feel like there's a good balance right now. I feel like when I'm with them, I'm with them, you know, and that has become more and more meaningful to me. It's been really important to me in terms of my acting work to always have them as part of the priority in terms of this is when I'm available, this is when I'm not, etc.

7:23Elizabeth Day:but this is different. This is in terms of what happens with meetings and with Zooms and all those other things that end up in our days today taking, sucking that time. And I've got some pretty strict rules around all of that so that my workaholism is something that my boys can look at as being beneficial to them because they can see, you know, not just in terms of what I bring home at the end of the day but in terms of seeing me effectively building things and they both have an interest in that and I think it's been really great that they get to see and I think they would say that too that to see a mum who is entrepreneurial and making things and they're teenagers aren't

8:12Munroe Bergdorf:yeah and you mentioned two of them are and then I have one who's yeah 28 okay

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11:04Gillian Anderson:I think I'm an extremely ambitious person. I have a drive that I think is my biggest attribute. I've really had to live a life of discipline and a life of tenacity and constant setbacks, constant people that are gatekeeping, people that are withholding and, you know, coming into the fashion industry nobody wanted to hire me and it took some of the biggest photographers just taking a chance on me like Nick Knight like Rankin who wanted to work with me when you know I was constantly having doors slammed in my face because they were like why would we work with a trans person almost and it's you know I know that a lot of black models from the 90s felt the same way as like we're you know I watched a documentary the other day where they're like we're just not hiring black models this season it's exactly the same so why would we work with a trans person there's not that kind of campaign it's not an LGBT campaign and like now we're seeing that change we're seeing trans people be in shows and it's not a thing that they're trans it's just you know I mean it is a thing because the visibility is incredible and you know when I see a trans model on a runway if it's like Alex or if it's Maxim or if it's oh god India or if it's all of these incredible people that are within the industry that means so much to me but it is not exploited that they're trans anymore and for so long it was I have done shoots where my transness has been you know almost like a gimmick and I'm really glad that I've opened doors for so many people I've been in this industry for almost a decade now.

12:49Gillian Anderson:But if it wasn't for, you know, hearing the stories of, you know, women like Naomi Campbell and Joan Smalls and Jordan Dunn and Leomi Anderson talking about, you know, being exploited from like the ages of 14 and being told that there's no Black models this season or being on set and not knowing how to do Black hair. If it wasn't for those stories and seeing their tenacity and that they could get through it, then I could apply the same kind of work ethic and be like, okay, well, one day, there's going to be more than one trans person on the runway, or there's going to be a trans person on the runway.

13:25Gillian Anderson:And, you know, I have faith that there's going to be multiple trans people on runways one day. And then that's going to filter out as well. And then we're going to see more trans people in all sorts of campaigns. And then the beauty standard is going to change. And then trans beauty is not going to be seen as any different from any other beauty, just like black beauty is now getting the respect that it didn't once upon a time and that's really you know what the book is about as well is everything does change and I've really got faith that one day trans people are gonna be able to navigate society in the same kind of freedom that other people that experience the same kind of oppression in yesteryear did and we'll just be able to be ourselves without having to constantly be so aware of the fact that we're different

14:13Munroe Bergdorf:you gave me four words i'm gonna let you off the final one oh i'm sorry i forgot that i was um maybe the last one's long-winded it's such a beautiful place to end and if i can i would like

14:26Gillian Anderson:to give the final word you're like this is quick fire i think no i never wanted to be quick fire

14:30Munroe Bergdorf:with you honestly i could do this for hours but i know you've got a fabulous lunch to go to the final word for me would be powerful you're so powerful you're powerful in your truth you're powerful in your words on the page, you're powerful in person. I am so grateful to you for finding time to do how to fail. Honestly, it's meant the world to me.