Lily Collins: The Tweeds and the Wellies (Re-Release)

0:00Lily, I think it's possible that we've met each other, but you would be so young that you wouldn't remember. I was going to say the same thing. I didn't think you'd remember.

0:22Hey, everybody. It's Literally and it's me, Rob Lowe. Well, listen, I might be the only man in the world that watches Emily in Paris. I know a lot of people watch Emily in Paris. It's a huge hit. Very huge hit. And I'm confident enough in my own masculinity to say that I watch Emily in Paris. I do. And the reason I watch Emily in Paris is because of Lily Collins, who is amazing. And I'm very excited about her movie Windfall. She worked with her husband who directed it. And one of my faves, Jason Segel, which I believe is on Netflix. She's super interesting. And she is on the show. She's not in Paris, as it turns out.

1:05she's on literally right now you were born in in surrey but did you grow up there do you have memories of surrey because one of my favorite places in england oh it's so beautiful yeah i was born in west sussex and deep deep deep countryside apologies my oh wait that's an amazing dog redford tell me about that dog he is so hello dog oh my gosh he's a little rescue Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, my husband and I adopted him pre adopted before he was eight weeks. And he's our, our little pride and joy. But, you know, as as in quarantine, he became a quarantine dog. So now he's just extra lovable. So he'll be joining us today.

1:49Oh, good. Good. But yeah, I was born in West Sussex in England in the countryside. And I grew up there until I was about five, turning six. And that's when I moved to California. But I still have my childhood house there that I was basically born at. Wow. And we used to, before COVID, I would go back every Christmas or New Year's and a couple times a year. But it's just so calming. and you're driving down fields and there's sheep and cows and farmland. And it really is. You can just breathe easily. The air is clean. And yeah, I love it so much. I have a kind of a fantasy that I could retire as a gentleman farmer to Surrey.

2:33I don't know if it's ever going to come to fruition. Oh, you totally could, by the way. I could totally see that. A gentleman farmer. I mean, you know. With my tweeds and my wellies. Yes. You have to have the tweeds. You have to have the wellies and a family crest of some sort. Oh, I made a phony baloney family crust. Oh, really? Oh, sure. Absolutely. A phony baloney family crust. I mean, come on. I love that. How regal. And it's the pinky ring on the guys, right? In England. Oh, yeah. This is Americans. Like, we don't, you know, we don't realize these things until you spend time in England, which I've done so much because I've worked a lot over there.

3:08But, like, I love the, like, the bros with their little... It's the equivalent here of... What would be the American equivalent? It'd be... It would be the guys in the Vineyard Vines who back east that like are like Wall Street, you know, scions. Oh, probably. Right? Yeah, exactly. Old school. Like you have family generations and generations of people that have like lived there or the house that kind of has been passed along or something like that. Oh, yeah, definitely. Now, what store did your dad, your grandpa own in Beverly Hills? Tavelman's. So my mom's dad owned Tavelman's and it was a gentleman's haberdashery.

3:44A haberdashery. Yes. That's where I would go to get my clothes as a gentleman farmer. I'm going to, I would go to Tavelman's. Yes. Oh my God. Yes, exactly. You and the Marx brothers. Cause the Marx brothers also went there to, to get their gentlemanly clothes. Yes. My mom used to work in the store occasionally. I think like maybe like folding clothes and my grandmother worked in the store as well on occasion. She was a ballerina, but she also would work in the store with them. And it was on Wilshire in Beverly Hills. I remember it. And I want to say that it then turned into Nike years later, which seems very odd.

4:21Or absolutely perfect, depending on your view of society. Exactly. The modern day haberdasher. Yes. Yeah. So that was cool. I have so many good factoids. You met Princess Diana when you were a toddler. Legend has it. There are actually photos that I've seen. It was at a Prince's Trust event and there's photos of it, but I was presenting her with flowers, a bouquet of flowers. And when she went to take them, I then tried to pull them back away, as you do, you know. I guess I just didn't know protocol. Can't say that I do the same thing now. But yes, when I was younger, I did meet her. Do you remember?

5:07You obviously remember it. I, very little. I mean, I also met, or I was told that I met Prince Charles and we were playing with some toys that I had. And I think it was like a toy telephone or a toy car. I think it was, no, it was a toy telephone. And he was playing with me and I threw it at him. Again, not protocol. You just don't do that. You don't do that. But as a kid, you're like, no, I'm playing with you. I don't know. I don't know any better. So, yeah, I think I went to quite a few events and met really, really fascinating people, but was probably too young to really have many memories.

5:52But the memories I do have are always, you know, non-protocol ones. Now, you are an actual debutante. I guess you could say I am. Oh, no, wait. I have to read because this is so good. This is because I do a lot of prep for my guests. And this is the greatest. So glad this made it in. I know. You're like, that Rob Lowe, he asked me the worst questions. No, but I'm fascinated with this stuff because no one else is going to ask you this. And I'm obsessed with this. You were, and this is my favorite word, presented as a debutante at the Ball des Debutantes in Paris in 2007. Yes. I was. This is true.

6:35It was the Creon Ball and it used to be at the Creon Hotel. I don't really know where they take place anymore, but I was asked. I was in high school. I think I was 18 years old. And you know what? When I signed on to do this, I was doing it, A, because I was like, this is really cool to be asked. And B, I know that I'm going to have some pretty crazy, cool, funny memories from this that I just think I need in my life. And it was pretty special, I'm not going to lie. I mean, also like kind of just hilarious in a lot of ways. I mean, there was like waltzing lessons with your parents. There were fittings with all the different designers.

7:22So every girl was dressed by a different fashion house. And so that actually began my relationship with Chanel because I was the young debutante chosen to be dressed in Chanel. And so there's just all these elements as a girl who grew up loving fashion and loving, you know, to go into kind of the archives and pick an outfit is pretty wild. So did you go to Chanel? Did you go to the, you're in Paris. It's a proper Chanel house. So we were in Paris. We went to the official, the archives and you go to where, you know, Coco's apartment and kind of where the archives are. And they just opened them up and said, well, what looks nice to you?

8:04What looks appealing? What would you like to wear? And it was really that kind of magical moment of this is going to be kind of a joke, like this can't be real. And so I picked the dress. We had the fitting. And I think I had another fitting after that. And I still actually have the shoes because they made shoes to go with the dress. And you're doing so much press during the day, which sounds weird. There was a lot of press surrounding this debutante ball. And you're running around the hotel from room to room to do it and do these shoots and stuff. But my dress kept getting caught in the elevator.

8:36So there'd be these pieces of my dress everywhere. And there was even pieces of my dress on my shoes because they somehow got stuck to my shoes. So I have my shoes in this box somewhere that have all these remnants of the night on my shoes, which makes for a nice memento. I'm hoping that you've pitched this as a storyline for Emily in Paris somehow. Oh, my God. That's a great idea. Right. I kind of love that. No, I haven't. Maybe you heard it here first. I mean, I just want I want writer's credit because that's an episode I want to see. Actually, it's kind of great because it's also girls from all over the world.

9:12I mean, there were girls from every country there. So it would make for a good episode, Rob. I'm not going to lie. I kind of love this. will you tell Darren it was my idea I you know what I'll play this episode for him oh my god I love that well why don't you just come to Paris and take part in it I know Darren and I've been trying to find something to do for a billion years and we just have never found maybe maybe this is could I play the uh who's the guy who's the king of the ball like who's the guy that runs the uh the king of the ball debutante ball you of course um there was uh you know like a a french lady who who ran it who was the one responsible for kind of gathering together all these different people um and and then most it's actually quite funny because most of the girls were presented alongside their chevalier who was either not like, I don't think there was any princes.

10:15I mean, I would have known about that, but they were kind of, you know, young men that came from well-esteemed families or just different types of men from all over, young boys from all over the world that would like partner with a girl. How did, okay. I got to know about your chevalier. So my chevalier, I'm still friends with, and he actually now runs, um, Tatler magazine in England. Uh, yes, he is like the head editor in chief over there. And at the time he was writing for Tatler. His name's Richard Demmon. He's a wonderful, lovely human. And we had the best time. We were kind of like the rock and roll duo of the ball.

10:56Um, cause I think we had the most fun. This is the greatest. How is this not a thing? This is the more you tell it that this is such a season finale. I'm not even it's like unbelievable. Really? That's so funny. I'm, you know, I'm going to pitch it. I'm totally I'm going to take this conversation and run with it. It's so good. The Chevalier. By the way, your show is is is populated with young men that look like Chevaliers. I've never seen more good haircuts on a television series in my life. than on... Well, you know what? Our hair department did just win best hair in a limited series or miniseries or TV show at their guild awards.

11:39So I'm going to give them credit for those. I watched that show. I'm like, okay, first of all, tell me. Men's hair. Because, you know, I'm obsessed with hair. Men's hair, more so even the women's hair. And losing it. And not wanting to lose it. Or people who have lost it. Or people who haven't lost it. That's a big... topic of my life. And those young, young chevaliers have manes. I mean, it's a thing. They do have manes. They do have manes. Yeah. And, you know, our hair department is just so, they're so wonderful at dealing with men's and women's hair because, you know, it takes a lot to be able to do both.

12:17And maybe that was something that Darren was looking for. I don't know, but you know, you're right. They do have great hair. I have only shot in Paris once and it was both maddening and so romantic. What's your, because it's hard to shoot in Paris, super hard to shoot in Paris. What's your experience like? Okay, so I've been to Paris many times before working there. But to become a resident of sorts while you're there for about four months is such a different experience in any country. let alone a city that you already feel like you know pretty well um so year one was very different than year two in that year two we were in the thick of a pandemic and quarantined most of the time and having to really stick to our cast and crew and not go out and also when we first got there there were no other travelers from anywhere around the world did it feel super deserted was it shocking?

13:19Yes. It was shockingly deserted. There was nothing open but supermarkets and pharmacies for the first couple of weeks. Um, and then things started opening up and it was weird because the place where, where I was living, where we were living, um, is, was like in the, the heart of an artistic haven yet during the pandemic, everything was closed up. So when I first got there, it made me forget where I had chosen to have an apartment because it was so quiet that all of a sudden overnight when restaurants opened up again, all these like doors and walls opened up and there were just heaves of people.

13:59And I went, where are we? Like, are we going home? And my driver was like, your apartment's right there. And I didn't even recognize the street because it had gone from nothing to hundreds of people in the span of hours when they finally reopened everything. But I really love working in Paris. It's hard because this show is, it is demanding. It's, it's a lot of hours. It's a lot of moving around from place to place, a lot of costume changes. But to find yourself in a place like Versailles or even just a back alley that's so beautiful and you're just going, how is this not just a set created on the back a lot.

14:40Like it looks too real. It looks too fake sometimes because it is so beautiful, but I feel really lucky. And when I watched the show, I was like, oh yeah, it's a green screen. Right. And you're like, nope. Oh, cause it looks, you can't believe it. It's shocking. It is pretty wild. We were able to actually go to all the locations we were, especially during the pandemic. But I guess that's just a Darren star show. And one, one also that the city and in the French people have so embraced the show that we feel so much love and support when we go there. And the French embassy in the United States is so supportive.

15:19And so it really feels like we've been able to partner with the city in a lot of ways. It's really fun. I'm really excited to go back. And I love our cast and crew so much. And by the way, for those of you who don't know, Darren Starr, who we're talking about, created 90210 and many and a few other great ones that I'm missing, that I'm not remembering at the moment. Have you been to the American embassy yet? Have you had a reason to go there? So, no. I have not. I've been to the French embassy. Right. But I have not yet been to the embassy in France. It's amazing. It's so beautiful. Is it stunning?

15:54Well, maybe Emily needs to go there, too. You're just pitching all the ideas. And then I think we need to do an episode about L 'Amie Louis, which is that restaurant that every American wants to go to when they go to Paris, which has all the chickens. Oh my God, I don't even know about this place. Wait a minute, come on. You have to know this restaurant. I have never heard of this place. Get, okay, Lamy Louis. I'm so not cool. So friend of Louis. Okay, I'm gonna text it. Lamy Louis. Okay, Lamy Louis. Oh, I've literally never heard of this. By the way, and it's dope. It's so, like the gigantic slabs of pate, like slabs of pate and roast chicken, french fries salad fresh vegetables and there's only like nine tables and it's every oh my god it's every american who's in paris yeah it's insane i have not wow but it's so iconic it would be like if you it would be like if you're shooting sex in the city and and and hadn't and hadn't done a scene in times square

17:06I grew up speaking French, but I stopped practicing it because I wasn't in school anymore and I didn't have homework. And then my little brothers who are half Swiss, um, their, I mean, their English became so good, better than my French that I just stopped speaking to them in French, lost the confidence. And then I was cast as a girl who knows nothing about the French language or culture. And so I'm kind of being encouraged to not know much, you know, as the character. And it made it difficult for me on weekends to practice it because I was just, there's so much dialogue during the week. I just like wanted to relax.

17:51But season two, I started picking it up again and I even started dreaming again in it. Cause when I was a teenager, I started dreaming in it cause I was pretty fluent. Um, but yeah, I just, I really need to dedicate myself season three to getting a lot better. Did you find what, what I, what I find with a language like that, that you knew fairly well and then have it's atrophied that, um, I can read it still better than I can speak it. Yeah. I could read a French paper and be, I think, probably at least 80%. That's amazing. Yeah. You know what? I agree. I can read it. I can pick up more from what people are saying.

18:35But then when they turn to look at me, it's like the conjugations. Yeah, I freeze. Because then all of a sudden there's this expectation. you have this where all of a sudden like without even thinking you just blurt something out and oh my god i just said that in french yes and so my husband over the summer was we would we would go somewhere and all of a sudden i'd just say something or order something or say oh that means that to him and he'd look at me and be like you do speak french and i'm like i don't it's just like that was just like fluke and he's like it's it's actually not because every time we go out you do the same thing and you help me so much.

19:11And I'm like, oh, I mean, I guess kind of, but I just don't want to dedicate to the fact that I do, because then I feel like there's an expectation for me to understand it all the time. Well, that gets us to the other great thing. It's perfection because you probably a little bit like me are like a perfectionist and a worker and a doer. And like, I don't, I don't know about you, but I certainly don't want to be affiliated with anything that's less than perfect. So I'm not going to try my French. I suffer from what I, one of my many therapists calls and we've we've named an ikea complex and i and i'm i'm going to try to get that out in the public as a as a as a diagnosis i want this to be in the ama journal of diagnoses one day so here's my here's here's what i i say it is an ikea complex for me like at the nightmare of nightmares would be having to do anything having to do with ikea because it involves following directions and assembling something.

20:02And that is my idea of a living hell. Like this nut screw goes into hole number four, which is followed by this right angle. And if I feel like I can't do that, if I feel like I can't do it perfectly, I don't even want to try. I can understand that. I mean, here's the thing though. I, I, I like baking for the reasons almost that you're saying you don't like that Ikea complex, because it's just basically saying, do this, do this, do this. If you do it well, you should equal a cookie. So I like the there, like, it's quite therapeutic to have such specific instructions that should seemingly be foolproof in that in the rigidity of it, you can kind of then lose yourself.

20:50And I do kind of like that. But at the same time, with what you're saying, it's like, if you don't do it well, then you're like, how did I not even do that? It's got specific instructions. Like now I feel even sillier that I haven't been able to do it. So it's kind of a catch 22. It's like, if you do it well, you're like, Oh, that was so nice and therapeutic. And if you don't do it well, it's like, how did I mess up the instructions when they're very clearly marked? It's like, it could be even more frustrating. So that I, I totally get that. Baking. It's funny you mentioned baking. Cause I have so, I have a number of friends who have gotten super into it and it's not even about, it's exactly that it's the it's the meditative therapeutic it's not even about they want to they want to they love cookies so they want to bake it's that that they are getting something you know inner out of out of out of doing it yeah and i also really like i i like the idea that i can bake something that i can then bring to someone to show that i care whether i'm going just for like a dinner or it's, you know, someone's birthday or, um, it's, I'm just thinking of you.

22:03It's, it's like an active of caring and active, it's like, um, an active service, right? It's something that I like to do and to be able to, um, surprise people that something can taste good is that I've made is kind of a win. Like my little brothers, when I was, I baked them cookies a couple of years, a few years ago now, but I made them vegan. So they weren't real chocolate. It was like carob or something. And I, I did it to see what their reaction would be to see if they'd even be able to tell. And they ate like the whole batch. And then I told them and they couldn't believe that it wasn't real chocolate.

22:39And so to me, it was like this, this kind of win of, um, it's like a puzzle piece to make it happen. Cause you can't use the make something taste good that people wouldn't necessarily think would, especially like little kids. It's fun. It definitely is meditative though. I was told that you learned to surf recently. Is that true? It did. My husband's been surfing since he was a little kid. Oh, I love it. Me too. He and I, we got to go surfing. Come to California. We'll go surfing. He grew up in Ojai in California. So I grew up in, I'm in Santa Barbara. So I promise you, he's surfed the same breaks i have literally up there all the time it's in a barbara it's so funny yeah so like ring con and all of those places i'm going to i'm literally going to ring con after this after we finish this podcast i'm going i might surfboard in the car i'm going to ring con that's so funny yeah so i got to know all of these places through dating my husband and then And during quarantine, I mean, it's I've always wanted like I tried it once in my early 20s.

23:48And I hardly count it because I like don't even know if I got up. But then during quarantine, he's like, OK, I'm going to just teach you like I teach my nieces. I'm just you're going to be on this like phone board. I'm going to push you into the wave and I'm going to tell you when to get up and I'm going to be really easy. And I was like, OK, fine. And then we started doing it and I'm still at the point where I need someone to help push me in and like tell me when to pop up. So I can't really like look behind me and say like, there's a wave coming in like, you know, 30 seconds. And then I have to get more used to it than that.

24:20But I had so much fun and I actually, I got up right away. And I was like, for me, it felt like I was surfing these epic waves. And then I got video footage of it. and I look back at it and I'm like, okay, that looks like backwash. I mean, it's literally like two inches high, but I felt like I was on top of the world. And it was so wonderful because it was like this real, as you know, like mind, body, soul connection where you feel so strong physically and also like, oh, I did it. Wow. I was so connected and balanced and kind of, you were saying something before about the idea of, I don't want to do something if I'm going to fail it yeah well surfing is the first thing in a long time as an adult that i've tried with with this not this notion of like you might fail and you might fail publicly because there's like a lot of people on the beach right now um but it was freeing and i really liked it but i get cold really easily so i'm in like a full-on wetsuit even if it's like really warm water california don't want to be cold is it it's not warm no i learned in warm i usually recommend to people if you want to surf it's it's super helpful to worm to learn where it's warm because that added element of cold it's hard enough to do um but i'll tell you since the pandemic everybody in the world surfs everybody everybody because it's very true oh it's unbelievable it's never been more crowded it's never been more of a scene and i mean that's great because it's it's good but it's not you could tell your husband when you want to go to ring god and you just want to catch a wave and now all of a sudden there's all these people waiting to catch one too because that's the whole thing also that i just don't understand is like surf protocol like if there's a bunch of people in the water and you all see the same wave how do you know who has the right of way it's terrifying it's the person it's called the lineup right so it's a line it is the person closest to where the wave first begins to break.

26:20Okay. That's there. And if you cut in front of them, then you are what is called in surfing parlance, a kook. Yeah. You're a kook. A kook. I know that. Believe me. By the way, why is it? Oh my God. It's, it, it, it's with all the swear words that exist. Why does kook so, it's, but it's also so demoralizingly painful. You kook. I'd rather be called a fucker. It really is. I'd rather be called an asshole, but don't call me a kook. Yeah. You know what? It's kind of like a really, it's like dweeb. Yes. Because it's like kind of like really demeaning. Demeaning. But at the same time, it just, the way that it sounds, it's like, and because it's like K-O-O-K, it's like kook.

27:04Like it just sounds, it just sounds like you don't want to be told that you're that. It's really. And I totally get that. That's really funny. No one's calling you a kook. I hope not. That that's like that's like the second that I, you know, steal someone's wave. And if I get caught, you know what, actually, if I get called a kook, it might be like a right passage because that means that I'm like that I have that I am somewhat of a surfing term. Because right now I'm just like, you know, I just I'm just a bit of a blip on the radar out there. But it's really fun. It's super fun. I now do. I don't prone surf anymore.

27:39Like, in other words, I don't lie down on the board. I stand up paddle with the paddle and I surf the waves now. Oh my God, you're one of those. That's so fun. Because it's just a core workout all the time. And those little muscles on your feet are firing your balance muscles that you don't even know you have. It's like being on those half balance balls for two hours and then surfing on top of that. I've seen, I've also seen the... I have one. Why am I going to forget what they're called? The hover one. E-foil. Yes, I've tried that. I've tried that. And it's like my the fear for me was falling into the blade.

28:15You know, like that, that like terrifies me. I've tried it. Charlie's really good at it. But when you see people surfing, we got it. We got to rig up this. I know. Truly, you guys, I feel like you guys could get out there and like spend hours. I love watching. It is fun. And I finally can tell which one is Charlie now, because if you look out at the water and everyone's wearing the same thing, it's really difficult. At the beginning, I was like, which, where? I'm trying to cheer him on and I don't know where he is. And now I'm like, oh, okay. He like, you know, is he goofy? Is he this? Is he that?

28:49You know, and you like can tell. So now I feel like I can. You could go goofy listen to you with the surfing pro lance. I know. It's no big deal. It's no big deal. Is he goofy? You know, I'm trying. He's goofy. Tell me about the movie you're going to do with him. It's called Windfall. And he, along with Andrew Kevin Walker, Justin Leder, and Jason Segel, wrote and conceptualized this movie to have the same feeling of this, the feeling that we all felt during the height of the pandemic, which was feeling very stuck and claustrophobic in one space. and the film kind of stems around that feeling while not being about COVID itself, but about that feeling of that stuck nature.

29:30And they conceptualized it over Zoom during the beginning of the pandemic. And I would hear these conversations when I was in the other room and then there became an outline. Then there was a script, a first draft, a second draft. And I would talk to Charlie about it and I'd hear all about the story. And there's only three characters, um wife ceo and nobody and all of a sudden it got to the point of like casting and i um all of a sudden i became part of the conversations of casting and uh i had to give my thoughts on the character and i kind of they i wasn't a given that i was going to be in this movie by any means i just felt quite attached to the character because i had heard about her from the beginning and um And we shot it up in Ojai.