Rosamund Pike - ‘Failure Is Pretending To Be Someone You’re Not’

17:55Elizabeth Day:and instead of the word for mother which is ma they used the word ma which is horse so at the end instead of my mother my mother it was my horse my horse and i have got these two sons who who have who are this bridge into a world that i could never be i could never experience china as i can now through through them but the fact that i get such a lot of credit for it and i can't actually do it have you ever had that where you'll get you get a lot of credit for something that you actually sort of think, I don't think I get the credit in the first place.

18:29Rosamund Pike:I used to be able to speak Russian and I'm very sad that I've lost all facility to do that because I didn't practice when I came back. So now I've got one. Yeah, so you feel a sort of shame. There's a kind of shame involved, isn't there? Yes. And I do some, I can still say, do you speak Russian? And I can still say the word for monuments, which is one of my favorite words. What is it? Dostoprimichatinisti.

19:06Rosamund Pike:It's either heritage or monuments.

19:07Elizabeth Day:Anyway, that could be your next task. Okay, no, I'm not going to learn Russian, but I'll come back with some. But I mean, there are lovely things in Chinese. It's probably like in Russian, there are meanings like a laptop is a dian nao, which is an electric brain. And there are words like that in Chinese, which I just, I might have got the tones wrong. So the Chinese listener, I apologize. It could easily be a totally different word. But for English, it's fine. When was the first time you can remember being fascinated with language? Oh, I mean, first it was accents. I was fascinated by accents because I grew up in Elles Court and there was, you know, just so many accents.

19:45Elizabeth Day:It was very Australian at that time. It was much rougher than it is now. There were just so many accents. It was a big homeless problem. So we'd often in our block of flats, we'd often come out and there'd be people sleeping rough in the corridors. And I just was exposed to so many different sounds. And I loved that. And I always wanted to try and work out because it felt like character to me. Accent was always character. Well, I heard my parents singing in other languages, of course.

20:17Rosamund Pike:Yes.

20:18Elizabeth Day:There's a lot of operas in Italian or a lot of song is in French.

20:26Rosamund Pike:You know those times late at night when you're scrolling and you see something online that you've been looking for and you just need to buy it right there and then. You click on the link, you add it to cart before hitting checkout. But then that sinking feeling as you realise you don't have your card anywhere near and don't want to get out of bed. But that's when you see it. That purple pay button that has all of your information saved, making checking out as simple as a quick tap of your screen. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world and has so many benefits.

21:01Rosamund Pike:You can set up your own design studio, use Shopify's AI tools that write product descriptions and even enhance your product photography. You can get the word out like you have a marketing team behind you, easily create email and social media campaigns wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling. See fewer carts go abandoned and more sales. Go sign up for your£1 per month trial today at shopify.co.uk slash fail. Go to shopify.co.uk slash fail. I'm Craig Melvin. Cheers. Cheers.

21:38Elizabeth Day:Cheers.

21:38Rosamund Pike:I've always been a glass half full kind of guy. And now I'm talking to some people who look at the world that way too. Some really fascinating folks who share their defining moments, their triumphs, their challenges. Their stories are funny and quite candid. So I hope you'll join me each week. And who knows, you might just come away with your own glass half full. Search glass half full with Craig Nelton from today on YouTube and wherever you get your podcasts.

22:06Elizabeth Day:Infamous is the gossip show that's smart. We talk about Tyra Banks and bringing down Top Model. We talk about Jenna Jameson and how she dominated the 90s. You know, she's horny and she's in charge.

22:18Rosamund Pike:She just was very smart about marketing herself. We talk about celebrities who maybe shouldn't be celebrities, like the Beckham guy. Brooklyn is their first kid. He's had a little bit of the Nepo baby curse.

22:30Elizabeth Day:We investigate orgasm cults.

22:32Rosamund Pike:A woman's erotic power can unlock many other powers in her life.

22:38Elizabeth Day:And, of course, we discuss people who have gotten into lots of trouble.

22:43Rosamund Pike:My name is Molly McLaughlin. I am one of Jen Shaw's many victims. She was defrauding the elderly and her tagline was, the only thing I'm guilty of is being Shaw-mazing.

22:59Elizabeth Day:Listen to Infamous, the gossip show that's smart. The show's called Infamous.

23:06Rosamund Pike:Alongside the shame that you have this label that you don't feel you're living up to, Is there also a sense that because you're a high achiever, that you feel you're letting yourself down by not being perfect at something that's incredibly difficult?

23:23Elizabeth Day:Oh, well, I'm so far from being perfect. That might come later if I sort of got to a level of sort of mediocrity. At the moment, I'm at a sort of base at a sort of such a level of no. I don't think I'm letting myself down yet. I suppose if I now try and say, okay, I'm going to commit to having five hours of Chinese a week and then we meet again in a year's time and all I can still say is, tu qu 'u zafang pi, don't take your trousers off to fart, then I might feel like a failure. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely my hardest critic. I think most women are. I can be so hard on myself for quite small things.

24:03Elizabeth Day:And then I can let myself off the hook for something much bigger. It's a weird thing. I don't know if anyone listening relates to that. So, you know, I can, you know, recently I was meeting the prime minister in China, which was sort of an unexpected part of my visit there.

24:20Rosamund Pike:Yeah.

24:21Elizabeth Day:And, you know, I've thought really carefully about what I'm going to wear. And I wear this beautiful Huishang Zhang suit. A Chinese designer lives in London. I thought this is perfect. And it's a lovely mint green suit. And, you know, I'm there early. I'm on time. Lateness is something I'm not very good at. Or one of my failings, I should say, one of my failures. And I'm there promptly on time, you know, with enough time to be very relaxed. You know, the prime minister is entering the building and, you know, he's coming up the stairs. He's with his entourage. In a minute, we're going to transfer to the other room.

24:52Elizabeth Day:And I'm feeling, you know, I thought I've done this, you know, I've jet lagged, but I'm here. I'm in my nice suit. And I look down and on my right thigh is a great big smear of chocolate. and chocolate is one of my weaknesses right chocolate is I have a sort of I might almost say an addiction to dark chocolate anyway it's obviously been I mean it sounds so mucky doesn't it sounds so mucky and there's this smear of chocolate I mean I am mortified I'm like oh my god I'm letting down I'm letting Britain down I'm letting down the entire country I'm letting the designer down I'm letting everyone down and then people were trying to say you know no one's going to see it it's tiny to me it was sort of huge and increasing grammatically every second you know try to wipe it off just makes it worse so I think okay well I would turn the maybe I can turn the skirt around and then I'm and they're like well then I'm gonna let the designer down because it's obviously like she doesn't know where a zip goes you know the zip is obviously at the back or the side not at the front anyway and a brown scene at the back when it's the lady with a fart lady I mean fart lady having a chocolate smear on her ass is not great but still it's all for the photograph isn't it so when you see those photographs you can imagine a small smear of brown that's brilliant on my right buttock wait so you're not good at lessing is that a small thing in your so no that would be sort of i'd get no i would be quite i i would find that i found that quite difficult but then something else like um there was a sort of moment where i was presenting at the baftas with dominic cooper and i was all dressed up and um we were at the baftas and Dominic and I tried to sort of rewrite something, which is the absolute, you mustn't, unless you're a comedian, unless you're a professional comedian, don't try and rewrite it.

26:31Elizabeth Day:It will sound trite. All the writing is kind of boring, but just do it. Just do the thing that it says. Don't try and be clever. Don't try and be funny unless you are funny, right? We tried to rewrite it. It went very wrong. I was so embarrassed by how badly it had gone wrong that I just tried to get to the end and I ended up opening the envelope before announcing the nominees. Now, this is on live television. This is quite a major mistake, right? Everybody was mortified for me, totally mortified. Tom Ford was the next presenter, who is the most immaculate gentleman you could possibly meet. I mean, there is no one more perfect than Tom Ford.

27:09Elizabeth Day:There's never a hair out of place. He does everything with such elegance. He looked at me with so much pity coming off. I mean, so much pity, benevolent pity, which is the worst, right? worst. And I thought, I don't care. Why don't I care? I don't care. I've just, I've embarrassed myself massively. So, and I don't really know to this day. I think there was a huge relief in that this is not something I feel I'm good at. I'm not good at being myself on stage. I'm meant to be another character. This might mean I never have to do this again. Gosh, that's enlightened.

27:47Rosamund Pike:Do you Do you watch back your film and TV work? Sometimes, yeah. I mean, watch back years later? Yes. No. But at the time? Sometimes I do.

27:59Elizabeth Day:Sometimes I sort of, somebody will say, oh, I saw Die Another Day and I think, oh my God, I must have been awful. I'll have a quick look on YouTube and have a look at a scene and think, God, I'd do that better now. But I can sort of let it go. Sometimes I do do that. Because I think in my head, it's probably much worse than it was. I was just so inexperienced. and it was such massive exposure.

28:18Rosamund Pike:I mean, straight out of university into that.

28:22Elizabeth Day:And also so unworldly compared to girls now, I think.

28:26Rosamund Pike:You turned up to the audition in one of your mother's taffeta gowns.

28:28Elizabeth Day:Yes, yes, I did, I did. I did, I thought it was a beautiful evening dress.

28:32Rosamund Pike:Yes.

28:33Elizabeth Day:And I didn't know that Bond girls sort of wear sort of three pieces of string or something that kind of looks more like I should be going down that, the bobsled race at the Winter Olympics, you know, more of a, you know, the people who go on the tray in that sort of sleek lycra onesie. I should have been more like that.

28:51Rosamund Pike:I know that I could get derailed here because there are so many of your roles that I want to ask you about. Jane...

28:56Elizabeth Day:We can, you can always cut it afterwards.

28:58Rosamund Pike:Can I go with Jane in Pride and Prejudice? I thought you did such a phenomenal job there of breathing new life into a character who runs the risk so often of being boring.

29:07Elizabeth Day:She's like the boring, perfect sister. No, people say she's boring. I just think she chooses to see the best in people and it was a kind of... It's not that she doesn't have Lizzie's opinions. It's just that she finds life more relaxing if she chooses to be optimistic. That's how I saw her.

29:22Rosamund Pike:And there's this beautiful scene directed by Joe Wright. Maybe we'll come on to him in a bit. Where you and Lizzie, Keira Knightley, are under the bedsheets. Under the bedsheets.

29:33Elizabeth Day:And it's been copied so many times since then. He always could do intimacy so well. He could capture it on screen. And it was, I remember when we'd filmed that and him and the DP Romanosin, they'd seen the rushes the next day and they were just, they were so in love with those rushes. They just said it's just magical. But he was always very, very good at being, and it's what people still talk about, you know, the little looks and glances, the hand squeezes, that he's very good at feeling, at transmitting feelings on screen in cinema.

30:08Rosamund Pike:And the beauty of the mundane, I think, as well. It's just so evident in that film. Jack Reacher, also, you were great. Now, were you pregnant? Pregnant. Yes. So there's some quite careful camera angles.

30:23Elizabeth Day:Oh my gosh, yeah. And I was, you know, and it's funny because, you know, it was funny because I was increasing in size, obviously, during the filming. and the costume department, I realized one day there was a dress and I said, is this a new dress? And they said, no, no. No, no, it's not a new dress. I said, I'm sure it is. It's fitting much better. They said, no, no, it's the same one. And I looked at the label and it was still the same size. And then I looked more closely at the label and I thought, is that being cut and restitched? And they had, they'd cut it out and restitched it with the same size so that I wouldn't feel bad that I'd gone up a size.

31:02Elizabeth Day:But that is how people are so trying to placate a woman's ego because they think the film industry is so much about, you know, I mustn't get bigger. I mustn't get bigger. But I was pregnant, right? I mean, you want to be getting bigger. That's such a revealing anecdote. Isn't it?

31:21Rosamund Pike:Yeah, I think it is. Okay, before we get on to your next failure, Saltburn. I mean, what a joyously hilarious performance. Were you having fun filming it? Oh, I had the best time.

31:33Elizabeth Day:I mean, Emerald Fennell writes the most wonderful dialogue, and it just sort of drips out of her. She's so good at analysing herself, actually. She's so good at analysing, I suppose, the mean, the unsavoury, the sort of, the risque parts of herself that most of us try and keep hidden. And she just says, well, we all think that, really. you know she sort of says I mean you know I prefer thin people don't you I mean you know that whatever it will come out of her and you don't know whether she means it whether she's just trying to shock whether she's trying to provoke but all of it is valid because she means that means she writes a character like Elspeth who says you know I can't stand ugly people yes

32:16Rosamund Pike:there's a confidence to the irreverence which oh see that's such a good way of putting it yes that's exactly what it is I was like gosh I thought so I would never be brave enough to make that choice because I'm constantly anxiously questioning and there's there's something so aspirational about that confident yeah I mean you just yeah Elspeth was was wonderful and I love I

32:40Elizabeth Day:mean it was just so fun for me to sort of play up that part of Englishness the put the sort of faux you know darling tell me about your mother oh god is she drinking and you can just feel the relish of the sort of story later it was such a specific social commentary Thorburn and it was done with such a light touch and she didn't have to explain it or over explain it everybody got it even the way she treats the house with such sort of casual disdain and you sort of whip past these sort of amazing paintings and she sort of barely gives them a sort of close-up or a sort of, you know, half a frame on the camera.

33:24Elizabeth Day:And that's one of the mystifying things about, you know, having been someone who's sort of tried and sort of got it wrong, has moved, you know, has been in some of those circles. You know, when you were at Oxford, you know, I was invited sometimes and I would somehow always be wrong because I made too much of an effort or I tried or I wasn't sort of, I was overdressed or I was always slightly wrong. You know, and there it's sort of, you can be, you know, squalid as you like, but then you'll wear black tie for dinner. And you just, as someone from the outside, you wouldn't sort of know that. Did you ever feel, or do you ever feel cool?

34:07Elizabeth Day:Cool. I feel cool all the time. Do you? Yeah. I love that answer. Yeah, I feel cool. What does cool mean to you? Well, I think it means that you can go your own way. I think you can go your own way. You don't give too many fucks. You can think originally. I think you've got some attitude. Yes, I think I do feel cool.

34:30Rosamund Pike:God, I love that. Because one of your iconic roles is obviously Amy in Gone Girl. And there's this whole passage in Gone Girl, the novel, and translated brilliantly to the movie adaptation about being the cool girl trope. But I love that. idea of cool girlness being embracing your authentic eccentricity in a way oh you mean not not what amy says not what amy says what you're saying no because amy is such a sort of

34:55Elizabeth Day:you know she's such she's grown up under the wing of misogyny you know so she's she's she's cool in the eyes of a you know it's it's like when you've grown up with a sort of sexist father you end up just becoming a woman who's there to please a man luckily i did not grow up with a sexist father I think that's one of the hardest things to overcome actually as a woman is sort of freeing yourself from that sexist perspective of yourself. Yes. Actually, I think cool is about being apart, is being okay with being apart, is keeping the sort of, you know, temperature chill when, you know, not having to kind of join in with the latest craze or kind of follow the band and, you know, anticipate a trend.

35:39anticipate something don't just follow it you know I think I yeah it's funny oh god look at

35:44Elizabeth Day:all that strong feeling that came out great I think that's my own brand of it because I think as a kid I didn't feel cool in the normal sort of trope of it you know I was never had the right clothes but now I don't sort of think that's but that's actually what it is I don't think that is actually what cool is but in terms of how a teenager thinks I was never no I mean I had like buckle over sandals when everyone else had trainers. I mean, it was like mortifying. But now, I think that was sort of gave me some character because, you know, you try going in buckle over start right sandals when everyone's got the latest trainers, you know, or when everyone's having a tracksuit, you know, and you're someone's having a bouncy castle party.

36:25Elizabeth Day:And, you know, I hear everyone's wearing tracksuits. My mom goes out and buys some banana yellow velour and sews me one, which has such a tight funnel neck, I can barely get it over my head. And as a child, I used to get very, very rosy cheeks. I mean, it was like I was like a sort of little Belisha beacon sticking out of this banana yellow velour. You know, so that is not cool. And then it's so funny because recently a picture surfaced of that party. And actually, this bloody tracksuit that caused me so much mortification was really cool. now you look back and you think my mom actually made me something really original but it wasn't

37:07Rosamund Pike:right that's so beautiful that idea of that that that young rosamond and the picture resurfacing and making pieces of it when i use luminate i get a lot of childhood self do you see you see people you see people yes that's interesting i usually just see pattern i know i'm now i'm jealous you're more enlightened okay your second failure talking about uh the roles that you embodied and were such a success in but your second failure is your failure to be an action star oh my god as you put

37:36Elizabeth Day:it yeah i mean it started well with james it did start well it was a promising start yes you know i was picked to be in the biggest action franchise of all time so then when i was making pride and prejudice and i was having great fun in my cornfields in my bonnet i get a call to be in an action franchise. They're making a cinema version, a narrative version of the video game Doom. And I think in my bonnet, in my field of hay bales, yeah, I can do anything. I can jump on this hay bale in my crinoline so I can certainly go and kill some zombies on Mars. And originally it was with Ray Winston, that project.

38:16Elizabeth Day:And then the whole thing was reimagined. and he was the sort of leader of this kind of bunch of marines going out to this facility in Mars and I was a scientist out there and then for whatever reason Ray Winston didn't end up doing it and he was replaced by Dwayne Johnson, The Rock. So suddenly I'm in this film with The Rock and I realise how utterly ill-equipped I am to be an action star. The first day I meet Dwayne Johnson who couldn't be nicer but is just a completely different beast from 24 year old rp who had a team of like macho guys around him you know there were people pepping him up there was like weights on the set there was like every time a gun was brought out it was like there was a kind of you know it was like a holy relic you know for the kind of for the for the doom fans and you know there was the sort of whole kind of routine before a take of like, I don't even know what it was.

39:15Elizabeth Day:It felt more like a sort of Maori, you know, all blacks kind of, you know, pregame sort of warm up something. And it was, there was water spray and I was just out of my comfort zone, out of my league, out of my depth. And the film was an absolute bomb. I mean, I probably could have ended my career. I mean, it was just probably one of the worst films ever made. I mean, it was a catastrophe, I think. As I say, I don't read the reviews, but you get the sense, like, you're lucky to have survived that one. But then it wasn't career ending for The Rock. Or you. Or me, as it turned out. It was probably after that that I started to do my research.

39:57Because I didn't know enough

40:00Elizabeth Day:about video games. I wasn't the right kind of girl to be in that. I didn't want to be the kind of sex symbol so it's okay i guess to fail at being an action star if to be an action star in those days was to be the kind of absolute bombshell sex symbol i just wasn't that person and so as the girl i think in a film like that if the film is a bomb you do think shit it's because i wasn't hot enough it's because i wasn't hot enough you know i wasn't it's not the total obviously the failure of the film but you know if loads of guys say that film is shit your part in it is obviously to sort of I don't know play your character but also kind of look hot and I don't think I got that or took that seriously or kind of worked out for the gym body that you know a better female action star would have done you know all those things that nobody also nobody helped me nobody said you know nowadays I'm sure an actress cast in that would have a personal trainer would have a sort of there would be a conversation about sort of you know you're playing Lara Croft this is how she should look.

41:03Rosamund Pike:Would you ever want to be an action hero now if you were offered it? No but if I'm going to be one I want to bloody succeed at it Okay The high achiever Did your agent Dallas Smith who picked you up from the National Youth Theatre, you've described it as one of the probably the best professional relationship of your life did he say Rosamund you know this was really bad and I'm not sure what we're going to do to ever see. No, he's so diplomatic.

41:31Elizabeth Day:He would have just said, well, darling, I thought you were, you know, you were fantastic. Should we open another bottle?

41:40Rosamund Pike:And that's why it's a great professional relationship.

41:44Elizabeth Day:Now he would have the confidence to be more honest, I think. I'll have to ask him. Well, you know, you might say, well, you know, darling, I mean, I always said I'd seen it. In fact, I've never seen it.

41:58Rosamund Pike:And entering a world of Mickey Mouse waving. Princess meeting and greeting. Lightsaber clashing. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror dropping. Banshee flying. Space Mountain launching. Galaxy rewinding. What is the whole network? Galaxy rewinding. Fireworks igniting. World of Other Worlds. For whatever you love. Infinite worlds await at the most magical place on Earth. Walt Disney World Resort. Spring is here. And there's a whole new way to chai at Starbucks that's made perfect for you. Choose your sweetness, dial it up, or keep things light. Add a touch of pistachio, a hint of strawberry or vanilla, or make it a spring classic with lavender.

42:42Rosamund Pike:Because this season, there's endless ways to chai at Starbucks. You did carry on to have this stellar career, and your final failure but one, because you were generous enough to give me four when you only used to give me three. I'm so happy you're going to talk about this, Rosamond. What is it? My failure to get married, as you put it.

43:04Elizabeth Day:Oh, my failure to get married. Yes, well, it's a big deal for a 28-year-old, isn't it? When you sort of, you know, your sort of template for womanhood, you're doing the right thing. Got a lovely boyfriend, you know, he's asked you to marry him, you're getting engaged and, you know, there's going to be a wedding and, you know, it's the right age. I remember him even asking me, you know, saying, are you pleased that you're getting married before you're 30? And I thought, oh, I hadn't thought about that. But yes, actually, I think I am. You know, it feels sort of right. It feels romantic. And then the funny thing is when you don't get married and people think the absolute worst.

43:40Rosamund Pike:This is the film director, Joe Wright. This is the film director, Joe Wright, who we met on Pride and Prejudice.

43:45Elizabeth Day:We had a huge love affair. We were very, very in love. We had massive, masses of adventures. We were very wild. And then it all fell apart. And when it falls apart, everybody thinks, oh, my God. What is it? It must be an affair, polygamy, drug scandal. I mean, I don't even know what people think, but people definitely think the worst. And so they look at you, you get the benevolent pity again, all from all angles. And it is devastating. It's utterly devastating, but it's not devastating in any of the ways that people imagine. And people are speculating onto why it happens. And, you know, it was far less spectacular than any of the sort of, you know, than a polygamy story or a secret family or, you know, whatever.

44:33Elizabeth Day:But, you know, for a while it was just awful because you don't want to go, you don't want to have Christmas because the last Christmas was, you know, with this person and suddenly you don't want to be around people who are being happy, who are happy and who are, you know, celebrating with their loved ones and, you know, with people who know them better than anyone. And, you know, even to sort of retreat back to your parents feels like a bit of a failure because you should be embarking on your own life and having them round to your place. And, you know, so going back with your tail between your legs is sort of, it feels a bit, well, it feels like a failure as an adult, big adult failure.

45:10Elizabeth Day:And also, you know, you really love someone and they don't love you anymore. That's also not great.

45:16Rosamund Pike:Is that what happened? I think so. Yeah. How far do you, because I know the invitations have gone out. It must be weird that strangers know this.

45:26Elizabeth Day:Well, I mean, that's a story that's, again, speculation by the press, I'm afraid. That's not true. We'd ask people to save the date. We hadn't had invitations sent out. And we've had a lovely plan of a wedding in Italy. And but the freedom from that afterwards is that you sort of think, OK, so people have, you know, you haven't played, you haven't achieved the thing. I suppose the template, you know, he was a man who was eight years older than me. He was sort of he was successful. He was good looking. He was funny. He was great. He was great. And then it doesn't it doesn't happen. And you think, oh, no.

46:11But then you realize that actually you're free in a way because you think there are so many other templates of what life can look like for a woman.

46:20Elizabeth Day:I mean, there are so many other ways that love can look like, you know, and here I am. I'm not married, but I have a family. And I've been with someone for 14, 15 years, happily not married. to want to create in a different way. For me, with the next big relationship, next big love of my life, it was more important to cement that or sort of mark that with starting a family than having a wedding. Because also I thought, I'm the center of attention so often. I don't need a wedding. I don't even know if that is what having a wedding is about. I'm actually a great guest and I love weddings. I find them really moving.

46:59Elizabeth Day:I always cry. I think making vows to someone is really beautiful. But I get a lot of opportunity in my life to wear beautiful clothes. And so that part of it, which I think for a lot of women is so magical, rightly so, you know, I didn't necessarily need that. But, you know, for any girls out there who are ending a sort of major relationship, I mean, you just cannot, you know, people say all these platitudes like, you know, time is a great healer and it's awful. You just want them all to go away and shut up. but actually other things come and then you feel cool because actually you've done it your own way and you've survived which is the best part of all is that you've weathered it and you've survived it and you're still here you know that's the thing that's the thing that all failure actually is that's the biggest part is when you say I'm fucking still here and I've done it and I've and this is in my past and you can look at me with pity with you know with sort of embarrassment for me and actually I don't feel any of that anymore and that's the freedom that's the freedom and it doesn't come straight away it absolutely does not come straight away and if you you know now I can sit and talk to you about this without a kind of terrible knot in my stomach and I think until you until you can do that you're probably not over it that was so brilliant and it's like you're in my

48:27Rosamund Pike:head because I often say that every failure will teach you something meaningful in the fullness of time and it can be that sometimes the only thing meaningful it teaches you is that you are strong enough to survive it but that in and of itself is so unbelievably powerful and liberating and I went through a divorce in my mid-30s and similarly I felt like such a failure and I felt so much shame and embarrassment and all of that and heartbreak. And then I experienced exactly what you did, that idea of, well, life hasn't gone according to plan, the plan I sort of set myself. But having ripped that up, there's a blank canvas now to decide what I really want and to be in tune with one's own true desires.

49:11Rosamund Pike:And so often social conditioning gets in the way of that, the idea of being married by a certain time, certain age. And I'm so pleased to hear that you are where you are with it.

49:23Elizabeth Day:And did you think your marriage was, did you think you married the wrong person or it just went wrong? Now I do. You do think it was the wrong choice. Yeah.

49:29Rosamund Pike:Yeah. Well, by the same token, I don't believe in regret for that hoary old reason that I wouldn't be where I am now. And I wouldn't have learned the necessary lessons, I don't think, unless I'd done that. and I certainly didn't think he was the wrong person at the time. I know some people have that feeling on their wedding day and I didn't really.

49:47Elizabeth Day:I think my partner now is famous for whispering to a bridegroom before he enters the church, you are the only person who thinks this is a good idea. What a legend.

50:02Elizabeth Day:He's always been a relentless truth teller. Does one ever regret having a big love affair? I don't think you do. No, I agree. Even if it goes to shit and you feel, I mean, you feel, I mean, it is awful. It is awful.

50:13Rosamund Pike:Heartbreak is horrendous. It is a kind of grief. It is so difficult. It's so difficult. And because that person still exists and they've chosen not to love you, it's just heart-rending. I'm not saying this about you specifically. I'm saying one. No, it's fine. Yes, of course. Exactly.

50:30Elizabeth Day:You know. Have you seen him since? Not really. No, not really. I mean... We once found that we were sat next to each other on an airplane coming back from Toronto Film Festival. And we got on this airplane. It was like if it was a movie, right? If it was a movie, that would have been the sort of, you know, that would be the rom-com ending is, oh, they sit next to each other on an airplane and they talk all night long on the flight back to London and then they get back together, right? But actually, we talked all the way and that was our only conversation since ending and it was lovely.

51:07Rosamund Pike:what an ending to that story okay um i know that we're running out of time but i want to talk to you about your sons because you live in this male household yes i do live in a male and your sons

51:18Elizabeth Day:are they 13 and 11 they are yeah 13 and 11 yeah what has being the mother of two boys taught you i really think life gives you what you need i do think you know i always imagine myself having a daughter, you know, you could say there's a failure that I haven't had a daughter. You know, I have a very close relationship with my mother. She had a very close relationship with her mother. You know, there's been this mother-daughter thing that's been handed down and I don't have that. And I do sometimes have a pang about that. People say, oh, you know, your sons leave you, your daughters never do. People are so full of doom.

51:56Elizabeth Day:Who are you chassing to?

51:57Rosamund Pike:Someone from Cranford?

51:59Elizabeth Day:I did do a bit of a voice didn't I I love the brothers I love the relationship of brothers I think I always wanted brothers myself but to watch the bond between two brothers and the fights and the sudden you know rage that can dissolve into laughter that I completely don't understand I mean I have no idea what's going on they fight each other they hurt each other and then they're laughing I don't know what happens I don't know why it happens only child doesn't understand it but I love it and I love the fact that it's pushing me to be a sort of adventuress which I'm quite a coward really and I like to play brave people because I like to pretend that I'm not and I think I'm constantly in battle with my own fear and I'm always pushing myself because I think I hate the part of myself that is fearful and I really don't want to be that person so I'm in a family of kind of adventurers who do extreme sports And so I try and have a go.

52:59Elizabeth Day:You know, they like kite surfing. They like skiing. They like scuba diving. They like, you know, their football. I mean, I'd never touched a ball with my feet till I'd had sons. And that will be the episode title.

53:14Elizabeth Day:I mean, I barely touched a ball, to be honest. But, you know, trying to kick one with your feet. You know, they've taught me so much. So much.

53:21Rosamund Pike:You told me before we started recording that you're very sensitive to smell. Oh, yeah. How's that with some adolescent boys? Yeah, well, at the moment we're okay.

53:31Elizabeth Day:I'm a big, you know, I'm a big sort of I put deodorant everywhere. I leave it out, you know, feel free to use it. Like a basket. You know, basket. You know, I think when they're older I'll leave condoms around. I mean, it's sort of, you know, I think you have to just make things available. And I said, you know, I said, don't you like it when someone comes into your home? Don't you think it's nice to come in and like smell like when I'm cooking? Isn't it nice to come home from school and smell that? and they say yes. And I said, isn't it, if you go in somewhere and it really smells, like do you want someone to come into your home and go, oof, God, that house smells bad.

54:02Elizabeth Day:I said, I really don't want that. It's one of the things I'm really, I think I'm really, it's my pride. I think my pride can't take it. But you know, it's like, but then all the blame goes to the socks and it's smelly. It's not the socks, it's your feet. You know, it's your feet. Don't bring the tools. Don't blame the things, but get in the shower, wash your feet and then the socks won't smell.

54:19Rosamund Pike:There we go.

54:20Elizabeth Day:You know, dry the football boots, Leave them out somewhere. Stuff them in newspaper. I've got all the tips. I've got so many DIY tips. I'm really good at smells. I've got alcohol spray, baking soda. I know all this. I know all this stuff. I'm a regular Mrs. Beaton over here.

54:38Rosamund Pike:Your final bonus failure is your failure to cook a rabbit. Mrs.

54:42Elizabeth Day:Beaton, you see.

54:42Rosamund Pike:There we go. It's a seamless link.

54:44Elizabeth Day:Yeah, you see. We could have written it. No, I'm quite ambitious as a cook. As I say, I grew up in quite a small flat. And my mum, we didn't have a kitchen that was the kind of kitchen where more than one person couldn't be in our kitchen where I grew up. So what my mum was doing in the kitchen was always a bit of a mystery because it was too small to have anyone else in there. So she would always sort of want to be alone in there. And she would conjure amazing. She was a lovely cook. And I always wanted to do that because I think I have a sort of need to nourish people. I like to nourish people.

55:15Elizabeth Day:And I, anytime I've ever been to a family home, that's got a kitchen that you can sort of sit around a table, I've rather envied it. And so when I grew up and became an adult, I really wanted to be someone who people would think, let's go into her house because she, she's a great cook. And, you know, I want to, I want to sit there and chew the fat and have long dinners and, you know, and I want to sort of provide. but it means that I can be quite ambitious and it was in my sort of mid-twenties probably around the Pride and Prejudice time and we'd been in Italy and I'd had sort of all this experience of sort of delicious sort of rabbit and it's something you don't really find in England to eat very much but anyway I thought I'm going to cook a rabbit and it's going to I saw this recipe and it was all about it falling off the bone and being sort of you know cook it for slow and by the time my guests arrived there was no way this thing was fucking falling anywhere near off the bone.

56:09Elizabeth Day:It was like gripping onto that bone. And I was distraught. I couldn't stand the failure as I perceived it of. And the kinder people were, and the more people said, it looks delicious, the more I self-flagellated and loathed the fact that I was just a total incompetent failure. The thing I really wanted to be good at. I wanted to be the earth mother. And I don't think maybe I am, but, you know, I tried. But it's the sort of, that's what I mean. It's a small event that has catastrophic self-flagellatory consequences because you want it too badly, right? You want the thing, you want it to be perfect.

56:47Elizabeth Day:You want everybody to say that that meal was the best they ever had because it gave them such a lovely feeling. And then the wine we had and we talked through till five o 'clock in the morning and we had the best time. And of course, we probably did. And so since then, I've tended to sort of try and I'm much more kind of fly by night about my cooking. I'm now much more relaxed. I know how to cook. I know how to conjure good flavours. It might be a bit chaotic. It might be a bit late. The dishes might not come together, but I will feed you well and I will kind of give you a good time. I mean, it's a bit of a sort of trivial thing, you know, in relation to, you know, my marriage ending and my failure to cook a good dinner.

57:32Elizabeth Day:But failure is really all about who you want to be and your failure to meet your own standards. I mean, there's public failure, obviously. There's like going bankrupt. But there's always a reason, isn't there, why that would happen. And it probably is you trying to be someone you're not. Fascinating. Even the going bankrupt. it will be that you've pretended that you were thriving when you weren't or you wanted to be someone who had you want to be perceived to be someone who had more money than you do or it's usually about how you want to be perceived and usually you've inherited that story of what

58:05Rosamund Pike:success is from someone else or from a society that might not reflect your values and actually what it says to me rosamund pike i don't want to eat rabbit i don't need you to cook anything Are you a vegetarian? No, I'm not. I just don't like the idea of rabbit. Even falling off the bone or otherwise? Falling off the bone sounds better than the alternative, like gripping onto the bone, I think, as you put it. But the point I wanted to make is that people want to come for dinner with you because of you. Like you are enough. You are glorious company. You are enough. Take that and put it in your Luminate app.

58:42Rosamund Pike:But you are really, I've enjoyed this so much. you're so witty and intelligent and brilliant and this has been a great conversation and I think that's the thing like actually we don't need the rabbit we just need you

58:54Elizabeth Day:you are enough that's it that's all we need you are enough you have always been enough you will always be enough harder to say than to put an eye on it and then try and say it I know yes no that sounds horrible and cringe I can't possibly do that yeah you did it you did it

59:09Rosamund Pike:listen thank you so so much for coming on how to fail you're welcome I've enjoyed it I've uh

59:14Elizabeth Day:yes, the therapy womb.

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