Caitriona Balfe

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0:40Pick a meal to pick a side. I think sometimes we get sort of used to sort of like, oh, well, it's got to be raunchy, right, to sell. And it's like, no, that's actually snot. When it gets just raunchy, I'm like, oh, God, I don't want to see that. welcome to one night stand thank you we're talking about books on a monday morning which is always very nice exactly have you always been a big reader i have i mean when i when i was growing up um for a long time we didn't have tv um and so our thing would be to go to the library every week and you would get your like stack of three or four books and then that would be sort of entertainment so yeah so I I have and then you know it's sort of I think you go through waves or at least I do in my life there's times when I have time and you know you can get really invested and stuck into books and then there's been times where it's a bit more of a desert yeah but yeah it's I think having a kid now makes it a little bit harder but then I think when you find a book that grips you it's extra special totally I was texting two of my friends from Birmingham over the weekend and they've both got small children and they were both saying that reading is like their escape it's like their own time for like 20 minutes at the end of the day yeah I mean if you can stay awake that's the challenge exactly what kind of books did you get to get from the library when you're a kid did you have any favorite series a lot of everything I think there was Enid Blyton obviously figured heavily like Mallory Towers Mallory Towers but I think it was also I think it started off with the five fine doubters and dog and then you know the famous five and then there was this the hardy boys also because my brother had those and I used to steal his and read them and then isn't there red roofs is that also that was another kind of like Mallory Towers type thing where it was set in a boarding school you know it's all yeah but yeah I there was I don't know yeah lots of like I can't think now yeah no I know I feel this I mean I used to read a lot of Roald R I think yes was always the best but um just because it's so dark I used to love those and all the various different it's so funny though like I am very looking forward to when my son is old enough to start reading all the Harry Potter because I missed that and I'm I feel like I'm constantly surrounded by people who are about 10 years younger than me who just talk about what an impact that was in their life and I'm like oh this is going to be really fun yeah it was so nice I was around the age of the characters in the book each time the book came out and it was a really thrilling thing to be sort of like around the same age yeah that's it's it's very fun I'll enjoy that um well let's get stuck in so I thought we could start with Soldier Sailor by Claire Kilroy tell me what you love about this book so I read this when my son was probably about two so I was I remember distinctly sitting in bed and just like my heart being in my throat um and sort of being scared by it and scared by stuff that I could relate to into in it and then also being slightly like oh thank god it wasn't yeah it isn't as bad as that for me you know I think there's something that she gets inside the the experience of motherhood and the love and the joy but also the absolute sheer terror sometimes of it and the grief that comes with it and I think that that's something that people don't really explain to you when you're about to become a parent is that or a mother that there is uh grieving for sort of the person that you were exactly that has to happen and and and you know and it sits in in this sort of space where there's so much love and you're so like grateful and especially you know it wasn't easy for me to have a kid so I I was sort of in this place where I was like I have to be so grateful but also then you get hit by these waves of these other emotions and I just hadn't been able to articulate it and then when I read that I was just like floored by it yeah I mean that's what you really feel between the woman in the story and her partner that he's almost trying to love a version of her that doesn't exist anymore and it's sort of sad and painful and obviously by the end it sort of comes together but there's that sense where she's like I'm not that's not who I am anymore yeah and And I just like, you know, I love that, you know, she's the soldier.

5:20Yes. And this little child is the sailor. And it's just like that kind of, you know, it just sort of encapsulates the kind of experience of, I don't know, like it's there's also I have lots of friends back home who, you know, they have an amazing maternity leave in Ireland in the UK where it's like you get nine months. and so many women that I know took that but and it's such a gift of time but it's also really isolating and really lonely and I struggled a lot because I didn't take all of that time and I have so much guilt about it but I also am very grateful that I was able to make it work that I could work and yeah you know have my son and it's sort of it's funny when you read those pages it's sort of like I don't know there's sometimes you're being sort of given solace and then at other times you're like I don't know it's it's such a I don't know being a parent is such a complex thing and I just I don't know the way she was able to get inside it and and explain it so viscerally and clearly was just yeah amazing did you go back to work on Outlander after you so was that the project that you went back for or yeah well I went back to work on that when um my son was seven months old but before that I I had done a film before I got pregnant and uh when he was about four weeks old I got a call and they were like so the film's going to tell you right can you go and I was you know sitting on a yoga ball with this infant and I was like no I definitely can't um and then it did really well there and got really well received so it sort of then took on this thing where you go on this like you know the the sort of awards campaign thing so from the age of when he was eight weeks old I was sort of on this wow you know journey and it was amazing because I could bring him with me yes but it was also like your yours and it was also covid so it was a very strange time and I think that that's also I I was in such a mad flurry of activity and the world was so weird and I you know I I think there's so much of that time I sort of hadn't quite processed yeah so then yeah I sort of found some of that process in the pages of that book I'm sure that's difficult going back and having to do something that's so sort of out of the ordinary as well like with being on a press talk kind of thing yeah and you're trying to you know you're trying to get used to yourself as this in this new entity and you're also you know meeting so many people and sort of being asked to sort of talk about stuff and you're like I don't even know who I am or where I am and you're like okay sure but it was it was also I'm very grateful because it was also such a nice you know know I got to be around people when so many people were I you know not able to meet anyone or see anyone and I I also love I have such fond memories of that time because you know we'd be getting ready every day and my hair and makeup artist would be there every day and like my son and you know it's it's it's also got so many beautiful memories but it was yeah it was a it was a funny time the um soldier the mother in the book is really wrestling with raising a son as well and like the sort of challenges that she feels in terms of who like the behavior she's seeing in her husband that she maybe didn't see before and the pressure she feels in weight there she has lots of these asides to sailor being like don't do that do you feel how does how do you feel about as a mother of a son like that sort of my worries and my sort of considerations about raising a son is how do I not let the world and society change him because as he is now they don't you know you look at old kids they don't see any differences they're not judging they're not you know he's just this pure little vessel and he's got so much empathy and so much kindness and you know that's all there and it's like well how do we stop this like society changing him and making him something that's not what he already is you know exactly and I do wrestle with that because you know the there comes a time when your influence as a parent you know gets taken over by their peer group you know I think it's like by the time they've reached age 12 you've spent more than 50 percent of the time that you ever will with your child it's something crazy like that and I could actually have that wrong like maybe it's even more and it's so as as your kid gets older your ability to have an influence is sort of diminished and it becomes like the peer group or society and all of these things and um and that's slightly terrifying because as we know the world is changing and there's all of these sort of influences that you wouldn't want yeah um out there but yeah i i think i think it's more about helping preserve who they are rather than installing something i completely agree yeah because they're innately they're just kind little yeah kids running around kids don't understand exactly hate or difference like they're just they have it sorted exactly we're the ones who are really messed up i agree would your son come on set and see you in like your costumes on outlander does he find that weird yeah no he's been on set so he I remember he came on set once and our nanny had him and he came in for a rehearsal and he was quite young at this point he was probably under two um and because I do an accent he just started madly laughing I was like not quite the not quite the reaction I was hoping for you know my fabulous acting but he just thought it was hilarious and ridiculous but yeah he understands it's it's been really nice he's been able to be on quite a few different sets so he sort of understands that you know I play yes for a living and you know I pretend to be people and when I'm pretending to be Claire or I'm pretending to be somebody else and and so he's like oh okay new Maybelline serum lipstick maybe it's not just lipstick it's lush color with endless possibilities it's serum infused with a hyaluronic acid and oil blend for eight hour plumping moisture in tone enhancing shades 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Great brands, great prices that's why you rack oh that's so sweet do you ever read books with the goal of adapting them and would you because I was as I was reading this I was thinking I would love to see you in a movie version of this well yeah it's I mean I think unfortunately a lot of the time now my reading and I and I specifically try to then not read books where I'm like oh could this potentially be um because you sort of end up reading it in a in a different frame but yeah I read a lot like I've I've optioned a couple of books you know with that intention before um but this one I I would like I don't know how you would I mean I would love for somebody to figure out how to because it's so internal I don't know how you would bring that out no and even the like the scene that shook me the most is when she's walking along the beach oh I know oh and like and I think that's probably the point where I was just like oh yeah totally it really like shook me and there's almost like two parallel versions of that because she's got the version with the friend and then she's like but is he here like do you know what I mean it's so um yeah it's it's it's oh that part really shook me and I think that's the thing you know I loved that in the book where it's this unreliable narrator you know and it's like when you're so sleep deprived and when you're in this kind of world where you're you know this character she is by herself with this kid so much you're you're you know there's days go by where she doesn't really interact with another adult and you start to question your sanity and like what do you know and that's what I loved about it it's like there's times in it where you're like wait did this happen is she imagining it totally is it a bit of both yeah you know it's it's so powerful and so terrifying that that grasp on reality is so thin I agree and the the Ikea scene as well was just like I mean it was very funny and in parts like the sort of dialogue but also just like oh god it felt so stressful I know and also just how her poor husband is so useless he is so useless just like in that image of him she's like he was just when when she finally finds her son and she's like he was hanging at the back of the crowd when she was like while he was screaming I was like oh dear me dear me well next I thought we could talk about Prophet Song by Paul Lynch another Irish author but tell me what you love about this book so Paul's work I I had actually optioned a previous book he had done a beautiful book called Grace and so I was aware of him as an author and so when prophet song came out i was like oh i must get paul's new book totally unprepared for what was between its pages he has a very distinctive writing style you know i know he's constantly sort of playing with form and he you know there's a lack of punctuation which i you know it's a rhythm that you have to um sort of ease your way into and then once you get it i i mean i was so gripped by this book I think it has such resonance to our time um and actually you know since it has come out even more resonance especially you know if you live sort of more in the western uh sort of parts of society or whatever how we want to describe this side of the world but um um I think it's so terrifying because it it really it really shows how easy it can be for the world around you to change but while you're trying to just survive within your own little world you can miss things and I think as obviously the character Eilish you know she's a similar age to me she obviously she has you know older children and she has four kids but she's in that point in her life where it's like she's looking after her elderly father who's got dementia she's got four kids she doesn't really have time to be invested in the macro politics of what's going on until it comes to her doorstep and and I always think of it like there's you know it's like a frog and you know if you sort of slowly boil water it won't notice and that's what I feel like her journey is but I feel like in some ways scarily I think it's all of our journeys totally because we all like to think that you'd know the time to that it was beyond but you never do no and I think you know there's a line in the book that when I read it I was like and I'm going to paraphrase now and I've probably got it very wrong but it's something like the world is ending every day somewhere in the world and I think we've all become so used to sort of thinking you know we are this monolith and you know our society this is you know we think very much from our own frame and it's like we live in sort of this western democracy and you know this is what's important but actually you know if you lived in Sudan at the moment or if you lived in the Congo at the moment or if you were living in Gaza at the moment your world is ending and it is happening everywhere in the world and we we are so used to watching it from afar and being so removed yeah and now that you know things are changing in our society we're all like oh my god like the world is ending and it's like but that's that that's been happening to so many people yeah and it just I just think it's such a it's such a powerful book yeah I agree and I wrote the line I wrote down is um when Ailish says it seems the day has come to be under some foreign sky and I just thought that really captures the way that it's like oh you think this is like this would never happen here or like whatever because we we are so blinded by our own self-importance in a way as a as a western democracy because we look at ourselves as this kind of paragon of you know evolution and and how well we have sorted things out but you know why shouldn't it happen to us just as easily as it happens to anybody else and i think you know it's such a powerful way of getting us to look at the plight of refugees the fall of civilizations the fall of um society in you know in our very safe I mean like Ireland was it could be anywhere he said it I think Ireland was such a perfect place because you know most you know most countries look at Ireland it's like oh yeah you know Ireland never happened there yeah nothing bad and and yet it just shows how easily that that sort of tenuous relationship we have with democracy can yeah can be broken i also thought it captured so well a theme which you also really saw at the end of belfast like i think endlessly of that um those final credits at the end of belfast where it goes for the ones who stayed the ones who left and for all those who were lost because that scene where that makes me cry I know because I just remember I mean going from Birmingham there's such a huge Irish community obviously and basically all of my friends from school their parents were uh well their grandparents were all Irish and they'd all come over and and so I just you I know I can remember them feeling it in the way that they spoke about it but that scene when Ailish is crossing the border and she goes she knows that once she walks across this line the wait will begin and this idea that when you leave it's not the absence of wait anymore it's like now you're carrying forever that you left and you walked away and I was like oh and there's just where do people go I mean Eilish at least had the luxury of having a sister somewhere yes having a root yeah and but how many people don't have a root out how many people don't have that lifeline um and I you know you think about what's happening in the world today and it's like we are so the language that is used to describe people who are escaping war or even if it's economic depression whatever it is the language that's used is so dehumanizing yeah and there's such a kind of like well we can't have those people here and that you know with small boats I mean I you know I live in the UK right now and there's such thing about the small boats the small boats and it's like these are human beings These are individuals who have every right to a full and optimistic life as anybody else.

22:04And it makes you think. I know. It's really. There but for the grace of being born in a certain place at a certain time. Yeah. And what would you do? You know, I think about that constantly. It's like, what would we do? I mean if there's a environmental disaster and you know no none of us are immune from the possibility of having to you know take one of those journeys no I know it's shocking it's also just the book as a construct is so I mean it's amazing how he grips you for that long and how it consistently gets worse and you don't like you sort of don't think it can yeah and then like when she the worst part for me and I just had to literally literally I just had to put it down I was like that part it shook me so much and I you just you don't think it can go I mean it's just such a feat of like creative engineering in a way elicits that response from you I was in awe of it but also feeling it starts off like it starts off so benign yes it's just it's it's a you know two people arrive at the door I'm like yeah I guess also like my brother is a guard she called like my dad was so it's like these two guards arrive at a door and like and then it's it's just how yeah how easily I don't know there's the thing of like the workers like now that her husband you know when Larry gets taken and then it's it all of a sudden like in her place like in it's like the manager changes yes it's somebody who's more agreeable agreeable to the administration and it's just these little things and it's like you sort of deal with this little infraction and then and then it becomes another one and then it becomes another one and it's just like that the scene that also really shook me is in the butcher it was like a small moment where she goes into the butcher and he just won't really serve her and just keeps asking and she's like am I invisible yeah it's such a it was so impactful but would you ever that I feel feel like could be an interesting adaptation yeah I guess it would be a lovely one wouldn't it no so yeah yeah let's all say about that for that but no I think it I was just thinking that this I could see it as a great movie well next I thought we could talk about Rebecca yeah tell me about your love of this book when did you first read it so I have I saw the film the Hitchcock film first many many years ago probably I don't know 20 years ago and I had read the book probably around then and then I am actually doing a project that is sort of yeah like adjacent to this and so I reread it recently which is why I picked it because I've read it in a very different way this time because now I'm looking at it and reading it through this prism of what was Daphne du Maurier's inspiration and who as who she is as a person how that influenced all of the characters she wrote and I thought I've never really read a book in that way because I've never like I don't really come to books through the personal knowledge of who an author is and so it's just really fascinating because she's such a complex character Daphne de Moria I'm not playing Daphne I I'm in a film called the housekeeper and it's sort of like I play a version of Mrs Danvers which is the best character which is the best character very different from the book Mrs Danvers it's it's It's such a it's what if Daphne.

25:44And sort of I guess our approach is what if Daphne couldn't deal with her own emotions in life and put her sort of repression and anger at herself into characters. And it's so fascinating reading it again from that lens. I mean it's an amazing book anyway it's such a the other books I feel like are very sort of dark worldy and this is sort of you know like a it's I mean it's dark but it's like a fun thriller as well it's gothic and it's kind of like yeah exactly and and it's sort of an enjoyable read from that lens but it's also it's like wow she really she had like Daphne du Maurier had a lot of issues with I think and you know this I don't know her this is just me like researching her but I think she had a lot of issues with her role as a woman being a woman at that time what she could express and so they're not like they're such unsentimental characters of women I mean all of the women are kind of horrible in it and it's so funny to read it like that you're like oof totally I felt the same when I went back into it this weekend it's just like you know mrs manderley is like she's like a skeleton and her hand is like like sort of flaccid and she's cold and she's horrible but even mrs de winter the new mrs de winter like not rebecca and it's also i was like she had a name right and then i was like no she doesn't have a whole book the entire thing the narrator is this invisible sort of there's and there's such disdain for like the way that she even talks about herself for the way that she's written it's like this sort of very insipid and nervous and insecure you know and she does gain in confidence later but it's you know it's still quite a caricature or quite a portrayal of someone um and yeah I don't know I just yeah it's fun it is funny I love that line in it that um I remembered it's it's you when Mrs Danvers is talking to the new Mrs.

27:57De Winter and she goes it's you that's the shadow and the ghost yeah not Rebecca which is like such an interesting like create like to make it because it truly she kind of is like she's like this wisp of a person that you can never really quite yeah grasp onto and Rebecca's so full exactly like it's like everyone talks about how amazing and it's like this life and like yeah and she is so like she's present in every moment almost you know it's like every room has these imprints of her and every scene that they do it's like Rebecca is alive and she's like sort of there in the I know on the periphery and there are there are like some quite funny moments in it as well I thought when I was reading like and I know this I'm not sure it would have been meant as funny as it read now but I've the bit where um I think when Mr Farrell is help is trying to find out what happened to Rebecca and they call him Mrs Danvers and they're like do you know about the he was like you know about the relationship between me and her and she's like what that you were first cousins and I was like but it just it really I don't know there was just these moments that really made me giggle reading it again yeah it's this I mean that's the thing it is it is quite camp in some ways yeah and when when when they she's like she despised men she despised you all she thought you were pathetic when she's talking about Rebecca I I thought it was so funny.

29:18Have you started filming The Housekeeper yet? Yeah, we're halfway through. Oh, wow. Which has been really fun. And it's you, Helena Bonham Carter, Daisy Edgar-Jones? No, Daisy, that's a sense of sensibility. Oh, sorry, sorry. No, so it's Helena Bonham Carter, Anthony Hopkins, myself and Emma Laird. Oh, that's right. Yeah, sorry, I'm getting them mixed up. and so Emma Laird plays Daphne de Maurier and Anthony Hopkins plays a version of well it's it's Lord Grenville Withers in our in our movie so it's a version of Mr Lord de Winter yeah it's really interesting I mean it's it's also it's I guess it's so interesting having read the book and so this movie that we're doing is based on a novella that rose tremaine wrote yeah um which and she has expanded that to a novel which is coming out this year which i've read as well which is really good it's really good and it's like the novella is one thing and then the novel is sort of something different again so she's like and i also thought that that was really interesting how an author is sort of in conversation with another author and it's just yeah it's it's it's quite cool to sort of see somebody take this little nugget of somebody's story and be like well what if like what is that and I and I guess as in you know it's very interesting as somebody who doesn't write to sort of get behind or get into like what an inspiration for a story is and then how that changes or yeah and because what was it um you know it's like how authors are magpies and they sort of steal from their own lives but yeah you know i don't know is it graham green or somebody said like an an a writer always needs that shard of glass in their heart because that keeps them from feeling too sentimental about using stuff.

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32:00The more you do, the more cash back you can earn. Plus, there's no monthly fee or minimum balance. Sign up now at venmo.com slash college card. The Venmo MasterCard is issued by the Bancorp Bank NA. Select schools available. Venmo Stash terms and exclusions apply at venmo.me slash stash terms. Max$100 cash back per month. Yeah, I mean, you have to use all the material. right yeah but that is interesting yeah and are you filming in the uk we are yes oh nice so that's that must be fun and is it's set in like a sort of country house right yeah so yeah there's a version of mandalay um so we've been filming uh nebworth which is an amazing big uh stately home in the uk um and then we'll go down to cornwall for a little bit too which is really fun yeah oh that'll be amazing and sense and sensibility is that has that filmed or are you we have filmed that yes so that was that was amazing I mean you know I feel so grateful to be able to I think last year obviously was the 250 year anniversary of Jane Austen's birth um and birth or death or both well it was 250.

33:07But that was also really interesting. I think it's, you know, these sort of classic novels, I think every generation can come to it with their own lens. And totally, you know, the when I first heard that they were doing it, I was like, oh, but the Ang Lee version is so perfect. It's so amazing. I was like, how could they possibly or what would they want to do? And then I you know Georgia Oakley who's the director um incredible director her first film Blue Jean was so beautiful and when I heard she was doing it I was like oh okay that's interesting like I'll have a conversation with her and when we spoke she just had this really beautiful take on it and wanted to I don't know there's just I think it's going to be very different in like a visually and everything I think she's sort of grounded it you know that sort of I think prior versions it's sort of like even though they were destitute they still lived in this like insanely stately home and I think she's just sort of made it all a bit more grounded so it's like you know when they lose things you really see that they've lost things to an extent and and um and it's I know she's sort of it's a love story really between the sisters which I think was so beautiful yeah I didn't realize that when Jane Austen first published it she put on the cover by a lady yeah which I just thought was so like fabulous but also like obviously I've had I mean what it was just I guess it was so I mean is dangerous the right word to be a female author at that time and to put that out and you know the scandal I know these sort of emotions and and and you know expressing these sort of like desires and emotions and this you know murky love affairs like all of that was sort of I know but it's just sort of felt so sort of obviously on some level you're like oh okay there's an act of concealment here but there's also she's also saying a really quiet bit out loud like which is sort of so interesting but I can't wait to watch that I'm a big Austin person so I yeah well there's lots of Austin coming out it's all it's all Austin it's all Austin have you seen Wuthering Heights I haven't yet okay but I I you know I was a big Bronte girl growing up like Wuthering Heights is sort of like that was my teenage yeah like novel and I'm I'm so I have to go see it just because I've been working I haven't been able to and it's so funny and I I love that it's sort of I have some friends who've gone to see it and I get it's so amazing and they're like so into it and you know one of my best friends whose taste I really trust she was like I've just come out of it it's the most incredible thing you're gonna love it and then I know some people who are like it's so not withering heights but I'm you know I I think you have to swing big you have to swing yeah adaptations they are adaptations they're not you know we have withering yes we have the book and there's been other so i'm excited for it i was probably more of a jane air girl than a withering heights girl and i think they're doing a new one of them yeah with um my god i've got she was in white lotus oh amy lou wood yes oh yeah that's exciting that is very exciting i love her i know i love her too and she's just that's cool it's so cool and i just that book means so much to me i can't wait to see it's so beautiful i love jane here yeah so good well i'm very excited to see the housekeeper and i loved digging back into rebecca it was just so fun of just and at the end where they like driving off and they're like the house is burning in the distance it's just so fabulous and it is and also it's like it's i mean it's a bit like wuthering heights and rebecca it's like looking at it from a lens of today there's it's quite problematic there's so many things in the book you're like yeah but I what I love about reading is that you know if you can just shelve that and then just enjoy it for what it is exactly and it's about the human relationship so much the time and those endure well let's talk about Orbital by Samantha Harvey this is incredible this book I have probably gifted more than I mean definitely I've gifted it more than any other book but I've probably given it to about 10 people and I read it so I read it like two over two years I took it so New Year's two years ago I took it to Mexico with me we were on a family holiday with some friends and I just I it was you know it's such a small sort of sliver of a book but it's so it's like brain expanding yes and it's the kind of book like you read a page and then you find that you've been like daydreaming over like you know 10 minutes and you're like oh god like you know I I just I I thought it was yeah it it it totally arrested me and it's so disorientating and you really feel their disorientation of when they're like is that where where are we right now when they're on the cycles and you feel and just the experience of being in the space station you sort of she really first of all I mean I I mean I had no idea that you would see that many sunsets and sunrises and that you would orbit that quickly that much around the earth in one day I was like oh I guess I've never thought about that before but that and I like and or I don't know if this thing happens to you when you fly but how emotional you get watching films or reading in the air and I think there's something about that disconnect from being on the earth and on the ground that puts you into this fragile yes emotional state so if you're like that in an airplane can you imagine what that must be like when you are orbiting in a space station it's totally yeah and it's that with the typhoon as well there's just this sort of like disconnect between like you know that this is like enormous destruction and then from up here it's this sort of like little sort of swirly kind of fleck but I think one of the things that I loved so much about what she did in the book is that she you do have that sort of overview right and that you have all of these astronauts kind of locking down and then she it's almost like she goes and you feel yourself being sucked down and all of a sudden you're with pietro and he's remembering the time he spent with the fisherman's family and he realizes that they are there in that pathway and so like it's you sort of have whiplash from going like yeah from up here in this sort of overview and it's all very existential and philosophical and then she just brings you right down into the heart of it and I guess that's what we are as humans right we constantly have this conflict between yeah sort of the materialist version of life in the world and sort of like we are you know form and you know it's sort of bodies and brains and then there's the subconscious and the like you know whatever our spiritual or subconscious mind is that sort of exists on this other plane and it's that trying to marry the two things together and she just does that in such an amazing way I also love the little I read it's Christmas 2024 and so I went back into my phone because I always take photos of pages that I love and I'd taken lots of photos of the lists you know those little like funny words and and i just thought that it was such a lovely like whimsical and and kind of so specific and human and then amongst all of this like grand theorizing about the list they're so funny like i think what was the um one that they're kind of easier to find because they obviously stand out in the actual pages anticipated things plums skiing slamming a door in anger sore feet fried eggs frog calls need of a thick winter coat this is Nell isn't it that writes them yeah oh my god they're just so like oh I loved them so much and yeah it's just full it's like chock full of ideas as well as such human touches and also you know this sort of like how you know I can't remember who it is but is looking down and always trying to figure out where the borders are and what the country lines are and it's like it's the futility of all that exactly and like and then you know these six random people put in a in a in this confined space and what family then becomes and like how our sort of constructs are just yeah meaningless and it's like you know I don't know I know and and also the sort of like they're also it's so universal up there but also so specific in the sense this image of the Russians who never clean up after supper and always like have taped their cutlery to the table or whatever it is it just it's so it's so like granular and those like dull flourishes make everything else feel so and then the you know also those things with like the photograph right and perspective yeah and how the perspective shifts everything that you understand about a particular thing it's like I don't know and the sentence I come back to over and over is that the one about maybe human civilization is like a single life we grow out of the royalty of childhood into supreme normality we find out about our own unspecialness and in a flush of innocence we feel quite glad if we're not special then we might not be alone i think that's such an interesting idea isn't it that like the universalness is actually an asset rather than the specialist in a way well that's you know i it is that thing of like we are i guess and you know this is sort of a running thing maybe not in rebecca but in the others it's like we were all struggling with these massive things and if we could just all remember that we're all the same totally and that we're all connected how easy our experience would be yeah exactly um tell me about wrapping outlander and how that's been because does it feel weird 13 years right filming yeah so we started filming in 2013 yeah I mean we wrapped uh what year is it now it's 2026 we wrapped in 20 24 okay so like the end yeah towards the end of 2024 so it's been a year and a half right so that's so we had obviously a big goodbye then yeah in terms of like you know filming the final stuff and saying goodbye and all of that stuff but obviously because it's been sort of this protracted uh delayed to the release it feels like another a whole other kind of level of it yeah I mean it's been a huge part of my life when we when we wrapped it was um a quarter of my life wow I've been on the show Sam and I both of us and yeah it's what like it was the most amazing amazing journey it's sort of hard to I don't know it's hard to describe what it is I mean it feels in some way like it was I don't know this massive education and this massive yeah it's just been this massive part of my life and yeah it's it's it's hard I don't know this tonight is going to be I think quite emotional I'm sure but also like I'm so grateful for it yeah I've been thinking about it a lot in the last month in the context of all the conversations around heated rivalry because i think that really opened people's eyes to how sex scenes are so valuable for helping telling stories around intimacy and i feel like outlander has done that so well as well in the sense of these the there's the intimate scenes really help you understand the relationship and go deeper in it and they're not these like gratuitous sort of like rompy moments they're these real moments of like intimate storytelling because when I heard people first started talking to me about heated rivalry I thought they made it sound like it was just sort of like people fucking and then I watched it I was like this is so have you seen it I haven't and I feel like everyone's talking about it I just haven't had time to do it it's just it's so romantic and sweet and intimate and this sort of like I was really struck by and you really the sex scenes really help you understand that intimacy and I think they've exactly the same in Outlander but I think you know we were really lucky in the beginning because Ron DeMoor who was our showrunner in the beginning that's what he told us about you know we were very nervous about the amount of sex scenes and I had never done anything like that I don't think Sam had I know who Tobias hadn't and so it was very new territory for all of us but Ron was like I really want these to be part of the storytelling yeah and so and that was our sort of directive in the beginning and it was very important that each time and you know especially like the wedding episode it's like it was a lot of sex but each time sort of told you something different about their you know where their relationship is um and then as it went on you know it got harder to maintain that directive because you know it's sort of if you become known for something then people have an expectation and an appetite for it and what we were really trying to do is like look we're going to show you a beautiful intimate relationship but it's not always going to be about sex and you know there's pressures they come from the studio or they come from the audience and you know you're you're an actor you're a human being you know it's like it's not it's not my first thing that I want to do is take my clothes off and so it's really it's you know it's really a it became like an interesting challenge to be like we want to show you a really honest relationship and also how amazing that we got to show a marriage you know that's not always what gets kind of air time these days it's like we want to show you a loving passionate marriage but like that ages and that deepens and that grows over time yeah and that's not always going to be about lust you know and and the the kind of the heat as it were that you get in in the first throes of a relationship is going to be different than what it's like 10 years down the line 20 years down the line 30 years down the line yeah but I feel like you know I had the most amazing work partner in Sam and you know he and I are such good friends and we always had each other's backs and we were always on you know step in step with how we wanted to portray this couple and that it was very important for us that it didn't become gratuitous and that it wasn't just about sort of feeding um an audience sort of what they think they want yeah but would offer but like what was but more what's going to move them yeah exactly because if it's not it's like fast food you sort of like get an initial kick and then you're hungry two hours later right whereas the way you guys did it i think really helped you stay invested for eight seasons in this marriage, like you say, and that's so much more sophisticated and hard to pull off.

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49:20My Lowe's Pro Rewards members get free same-day delivery on eligible orders over$25. Get the fasteners, hardware, or tools you need to keep the job moving. Order by 2 p.m. and get eligible in-stock items delivered right to your job site by 8 p.m. Members get more at Lowe's. Loyalty program subject to terms and conditions, subject to availability, restrictions and terms at lowes.com slash shipping terms subject to change. Yeah, I mean, I hope, you know, that's that's definitely what we were trying to aim for. And I think it's, you know, I think it's it's interesting in, you know, and it's the whole conversation around heated rivalry is so interesting because everybody seems so invested in that relationship and in the sweetness of it.

50:05Exactly. Yeah. And I think that that's so important because I think sometimes, you know, we get sort of used to sort of like, oh, well, it's got to be raunchy, right, to sell. And it's like, no, that's actually. It's not what's not. Yeah. And it's not. I mean, I don't know about most people, but like when it gets just raunchy, I'm like, oh, God, I don't want to see that. But I want I want love. There's a there's a British. It's like an Irish TV show called Blue Lights. I don't know if you've seen it. I haven't so did not think it would be a show that I would be like oh this is the weirdest thing it's about a bunch of RUC officers in Belfast and it's like they're it's like a cop show yeah but they've done it so well and there's a relationship between two of the um the police uh and and it's such a slow burn but it is like me and my husband we'd started watching the first two seasons a long time ago and then I I was going to meet the people just general meeting so I was like oh I must watch the rest of it and we were like we were so sold on it and it's just like you know when you find yourself getting giddy and looking over being like oh I hope what's happening like that's the best thing what a tv or film can do it's like to give you that I don't know that like you're rooting for them you're rooting and you're rooting for them in the soft moments and in the hard moments and everything in between yeah did you have intimacy coordinators for the whole time on outlander no i was gonna say because it started early enough that we were in the in the bat in like the early days which was like the wild west and yeah i wish we'd had you know I think I think we learnt along the way sort of some of the pitfalls I was so lucky that both Sam and Tobias and Sam and Tobias can sort of say that because they had scenes obviously together too that we were all such good friends and like really were able to sort of look out for each other but in the beginning yeah it was not always knowing what was being filmed how it was being filmed and then you know later on you're like just watching screenshots and memes and you're like oh my god my poor parents um you know and you learn the hard way maybe how to protect yourself a bit more but then um I think it wasn't until season five um we had then an amazing woman called Vanessa Coffey come on yeah and you know it's amazing what they do and like you know I think it's to protect everybody they're not just there for the actors they are there to and Vanessa's this incredible woman who came from an acting background but also law and so she has this just very unembarrassed clear way of talking about intimacy that cuts through everyone's kind of like you know dancing around like what do you want to see she'd be like okay what is it what's needed what's everybody and and takes it from a story point of view as well and really is able to choreograph or help us choreograph something that is beautiful and tells the story but also protects everybody and I you know it was interesting because Sam and I obviously had at that point such a history and so it was like oh well we sort of got this and then you realize that like oh no she brings this whole other layer to it but also I had scenes in season seven with David Berry and it was so weird because I was like oh my god I haven't like other than my husband and Sam like that's the only people I've kissed and like I don't know like yeah 15 years or something and so it was like this whole other thing of like you know it was such trying to learn somebody else's you know rhythm and and get comfortable and um yeah but it was amazing to have her yeah oh well I'm pleased to hear that because it's so much has evolved in the last sort of yeah and thankfully so totally um well thank you so much for this which is so lovely I loved reading all your books and sorry there wasn't more lightness.

54:30It's fine. It's fine. I had a very heavy weekend, but it's good. It was worth it. And congratulations on Outlander. Thank you so much. I hope you've had fun tonight. Spring just slid into your DMs. Grab that boho look for that rooftop dinner, those sandals that can keep up with you, and hang some string lights to give your patio a glow up. Spring's calling. Ross, work your magic.