Bonus: 2025 Oscars Special

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1:00at washablesofas.com. Authors are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. You are listening to Ruthie's Table 4 in partnership with Moncler. The Oscars are only a few days away and Ruthie's Table 4 is excited. Ralph Fiennes, Zoe Saldana, and Elton John, three Ruthie's Table 4 guests, are nominated for Academy Awards. The reason, we're revisiting their interviews today. Ralph is nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his brilliant and moving performance in Conclave. Tell me about eating and acting. What's the deal there? Do you eat? That's a good question. I think you need a bit of food for energy.

1:38So to have starved yourself or not have eaten within three hours before a performance, I think your sugar level would drop. But I know I can't eat a big meal. What do you eat? Not big. What about on a film set? is it when we we talked to breakfast breakfast breakfast breakfast always they have now found ways to shorten the day and they have what they call a running lunch a lot of films won't you can maybe grab 20 minutes to have a sandwich and they'll have a running lunch from 12 to 2 maybe if they do stop it's half an hour only and so you as i said you were in rome i was filming around twice this year i was filming this film conclave which you mentioned about the the film recreating the conclave when the cardinals, when the pope has died and all the cardinals get into the Sistine Chapel and they are sequestered away from the world.

2:30They have no contact with the outside world at all while they vote for the new pope. And they have to keep voting until the required majority is achieved. Can one of them say I want to be pope and campaign to be pope? There's a bit of that in it. Oh yes, no, it's based on a great book by Robert Harris. Yeah. And it was written maybe nine years ago. And it's been directed by Edward Berger, who directed All Quiet on the Western Front, which got a lot of acclaim the last season. He was a wonderful director. Very, very, very good. Very lovely man. Very detailed and very... And the best sense, attentive to the actors and the nuances that he wants them to bring out.

3:15I love working with him and the wonderful Stanley Tucci. Yeah, he loves you. Playing my, we're two cardinals who are friends. We hit a few bumpy patches in our friendship in the film. Do you both want to put yourselves up for being Pope? In different ways. He's a bit more, we're both reluctant to admit it, that we do. And he's brilliant in the film, I have to say. Did the Vatican, were they involved? I think they just rise above it. They just, no, they're not really involved, but nor are they just... And they let you film in the Vatican? No, no, no. No, no, no. There is a whole, the key voting scenes are in the Sistine Chapel in real life.

3:54And there exists a Sistine Chapel set made, I believe, for the mini-series The Young Pope, which I think starred Jude Law. Yeah, that was Jude Law. Yeah, Jude. So that set of the Sistine Chapel was mothballed, and then our production brought it out, cleaned it up, repainted it, and it's the whole of the first 20 feet of the Sistine Chapel with the Day of Judgment at one end as a copy. and they add the rest with CGI. But I've seen bits of the footage with the added CGI and it looks like we're in the real place. And then for me, what I'd last like to know is where did you eat in Rome? Don't ask me the names, Ruthie.

4:33No, I won't. I've gone... Okay, just tell me about the food. How did it feel to be eating the food of Rome for as long as you were there? Stanley, I hope you don't mind me bringing you up again in this podcast. But Stanley Tucci brought a chunk of us towards the end, a group of us who were filming, including Edward, to this wonderful restaurant called, not Pomodori, but Pomidori, I believe. And it's an old family restaurant that was beloved of Pasolini, the director. And he organized this wonderful meal there, late, very late after a day's filming. And that, I think, was the best meal I had. They had put on the special meal because it was Stanley.

5:11And they were charming. and I went back there to that restaurant again and I returned to Rome later this year in the summer to make the return. And it's just very, and you don't really, they kind of give you food you don't really order. I mean, you can order, but they just sort of present you with what they feel is the best pasta of the evening. And it was very easy and I definitely preferred the more trattoria style than the restaurants, the high-flying restaurants I'm not drawn to so much. Did you eat out a lot? No. after filming. On Conclave I ate out quite a bit, but the filming hours are so long, in the end I would go back to my flat and I'd cook something.

5:55But in the weekends we'd eat out. And what about in Greece? I love, oh, in Greece, we were in Corfu for most of it and we came across a wonderful restaurant which served the most exquisite lamb that was on a spit. Oh, God, the lamb was just extraordinary. just so succulent and tasty. And Spiros's restaurant, it was. It was quite a simple restaurant catering for mostly tourists, but the lamb was. What month was that? This was in May. Yeah. May in Kofu. Oh, you were just in Morocco. Was that also? Low. Tajine. Don't you think? Tajine, baby. Yeah, I agree. I think Moroccan food is. Oh, no, it's Moroccan.

6:40No, that was, oh, heaven. the tagine cooking is one of the best ways of cooking I think I've come across when the lamb comes so soft I was going to ask you about the menu because you know here we are chef, I'm a chef, Sean's a chef we're going into a restaurant and I remember you calling me up from there and saying that you were learning the skills a woman from San Francisco came didn't she? Dominique Crenn who I think has a restaurant in San Francisco called Atelier Crenn. And there's a wonderful chef's table on her. She's from Brittany originally. She's fantastic. And she came and she designed all the food for the film.

7:25And then she oversaw the initial first few days of shooting. And then she left a couple of her chefs with us who oversaw not just the food and the preparation of the food, but they were looking at the kitchen staff in our film to make sure that they behaved in their demeanour and just their rhythm of movement, just so anyone looking at it would believe it was a working kitchen. What was it like playing a chef? Did you believe it was a working kitchen? I thought I believed it was a working kitchen. No, I did. I definitely did. I mean, you were just such a fantastic character. And that type of food and the hidden humour.

8:02I was saying to Willem that Richard and I went to El Bully in the early days, you know, that restaurant in Spain. And it was very much one little tiny piece of food after another, one olive that exploded in your mouth, and one piece of crab that you had to pick, and then that was it. And they said to us, after 12 courses, he said, now we're going to finish with ravioli with parmesan and butter and sage. And I thought, at last, we're getting something to eat. And a plate came, and it was just a plate. And so we just waited and waited and waited. And we said, where is the ravioli? And they said that basically it was a spray.

8:40It was a spray that they'd sprayed on the plate and it had the essence of ravioli with butter and parmesan. We had to take our finger and kind of wipe the plate. And that was a dish, you know, and I thought, that's okay. That's exactly, the menu is inspired by exactly that sort of thing. Yeah, that kind. So what was it like being a chef in that situation? Well, as you saw from the film, I mean, I run the restaurant, so he doesn't do much cooking at all. He's overseeing it until the very end when he's challenged to make a good old-fashioned cheeseburger, which he does make. And I had to cook that.

9:13Did you learn skills? Just the cheeseburger. Just the cheeseburger. Did you make a good cheeseburger? It was good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is there something that you love about a restaurant? I always say that people do very private things in a public space. Have you used restaurants as a sort of safety net, do you think, to do something that's difficult or not? if you meet someone in i mean i usually eat either with one other or on my own or maybe after a show with whoever might have been coming um i like i love going on my own to restaurant with a book and it's a privilege but to have a glass of wine and simple food i love that and but going with i have been in situations where this is the meal where you tell so and so that you're not going to do the film or you tell them that you can't see them anymore or you know and that's heavy that's i mean that that in that sense when it's a tricky thing then the restaurant is a sort of padding as you say a safety net yeah yeah but um it means you don't enjoy yeah it's all then then the food and the service then that's all a kind of pathway to get through the difficult thing you've told yourself you've got to do.

10:27So I like to be in a relaxed context where it's just the enjoyment of sharing food with people. And, of course, drink a good, you know, I mean, let's talk about alcohol. I love a drink. Let's have a drink. You know, I love a martini, I love a Negroni. I mean, not in excess, but I just love that little drop in the kind of anxiety. And I hate getting really off my face. I hate the after effects, but I just love that little... Do you have a cocktail? Martini. Jim Martini.

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12:44Offers are subject to change and certain restrictions may apply. Parking shouldn't slow you down. ParkWiz gives every driver a shortcut. Book ahead, save up to 50 % and skip the hassle of circling the block. Park smarter, park faster. ParkWiz. Download the ParkWiz app today and save every time you park. Our wonderful conversation with Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, took place around the wooden dining table at their beautiful home in Berkshire. Elton is nominated for Best Original Song for Never Too Late from the documentary of the same name about his life. It was directed by David and R.J.

13:24Cutler. This episode was particularly moving. Elton shared with us his memories of growing up, cooking with his mother and his grandmother. I grew up after the war, so everything was on my... Tell me about early life. Yeah, I was born in the council house and lived with my mother, my grandmother, because my father was away in the Air Force abroad. Was it your mother's mother? Yes, my grandmother. She was fantastic. What was she like? She was wonderful. She could cook anything and make it taste incredible. I mean, basic ingredients were hard to get after all of it. We were rationed, and so bacon was partly a no-no.

13:59But she made, I never remember a bad meal or going hungry, and everything that was left over she made into something else the next day. And what I loved about her, because I have the biggest sweet tooth, are her bread puddings and her apple pies and her scones and her Victoria sponges. It was very simple. The kitchen was, again, the coal cellar was in the kitchen. Can you believe it? The laundry was done on the stove in a boiler, and we had a mangle. It was a very basic upbringing, but I can never remember. The smell of cooking was always wonderful, and she could cook anything. I fell in love with very basic, simple English food at that point.

14:42I think that simple English food, as you talk about bread pudding and apple pie, those are very, they're not easy to make, you know, and it's to do with the ingredients and the method and the way you cook. Yeah. And things like spotted egg and custard. I always walk into a restaurant, say, in Yorkshire or something like that, And sometimes they have things like that on the menu and you go, oh, my God, which for me is just a sheer delight. I would sometimes think that you go to St. John, for instance, they have Eccles cakes and the Eccles cakes are incredible and they serve it with the cheese and it's just like, wow, manna from heaven.

15:22Nowadays, unfortunately, I can't eat it because I'm semi-diabetic. But I do like those English stalwarts a lot. I do too. Well, so growing up you had a mother and a grandmother in the house and your father was where? He was away in the Air Force in Aden. And so I didn't really see much of him. So it was a woman's household. My mom's sister, my aunt was always there as well. So I grew up with a bunch of women who knew how to cook, which was great. And you all sat down to meal every night together. Yes, and we toasted our toast by the fire. Was yours similar in Toronto? No, no. I grew up in Canada.

15:58Toronto? In Toronto. I was one of three boys. and my mom was, we were very lucky, she was a stay-at-home mom. She could make almost anything happen instantly. She had a deep freeze in the basement and sometimes we'd come back from school or a sports match and we'd bring two friends along and she'd say, no problem. And she'd go downstairs and she'd thaw out some pastry, she'd thaw out some meat, she'd thaw out a tomato sauce or something then prepared in advance. Suddenly the dinner could just expand or change, you know, with 30 minutes notice. And meals were important. Although given it was three boys and there was a lot going on, it was a lot of meals on the hop.

16:36Three boys. Were you the... I'm the middle one. The middle one, yeah. The one thing that mum was important to her, because we were always coming and going. But Sunday lunch, Sunday dinner, was the one time she wanted the family to be around the table and have more of a sense of occasion. And that was a traditional English roast. My grandparents on my mother's side were from the north and the south of Ireland, and my grandparents on my father's side were from England and Wales. So a lot of those traditions came across to Canada and Sunday roast, Yorkshire pudding, roast potatoes, roast beef, you know, Brussels sprouts, beans, carrots, a really good gravy, and then always a baked pie or cake or sweet for dessert.

17:23My British grandmother was an amazing baker. So you both had grandmothers that were a force in your own. I love my grandmother. I think grandparents are so important. They are. I agree. The thing about my grandmother was that because we had a garden, we grew all our own produce because it was so much cheaper. And my grandmother had green fingers, so we always had fresh vegetables. Hardly ever had processed peas. I mean, the great advantage in those days is that food wasn't really instant. No instant whips, no instant this, mashed potato. It was all genuinely from the garden, which was delicious.

17:58So, I mean, I remember shelling the peas every Sunday morning. That was, like David, Sunday roast was very important for the family gathering. So shelling the peas was one thing, peeling the potatoes was another, broad beans was another. So we always had good produce because we couldn't afford to buy them because, you know, times were hard after the war and the Russians, we had a tiny bottle of orange juice which you diluted and poured the water into. But I never felt as if we were missing anything. You didn't feel denied. No, no. Yeah, yeah. But neither of your mothers worked. They didn't have to combine a career with cooking.

18:33Your mother worked. My mother worked all the time. And she worked really, really hard as well. And she worked in a shop. She worked in a dairy. She worked at the Air Force. She's always, but she'd always come home and make dinner. Yeah, she was a very hard-working woman, but still cooked. She raised Dalton as a single mom. Yeah. And so his ability to study and take lessons and learn and everything, His mum worked very, very hard providing for the family to allow him to do that. That's what got him on his path to be who he is today. Did you ever go to restaurants as a child? No, the only time I remember going to a restaurant is when I went to a Chinese restaurant in Harrow.

19:11We lived in Pina, and Chinese restaurants suddenly became the rage. Coffee bars were the rage before that. But we went for a Chinese meal. It was the first restaurant I can ever remember going to. And it was just, wow, we had bean sprouts. and it was just so delicious and it was so exotic. And I remember I was so excited to go to this Chinese restaurant. There weren't many in the area, there was one in Haro, there wasn't certainly one in Pina, but it was just an incredible occasion. And that's the first exotic food I ever really had. How old were you? I don't know, eight or nine maybe. Yeah. And did you go to restaurants?

19:45It was a very, very special treat. Special occasion. Yeah, because, again, it was expensive and it was a big treat. What we never had was fast food. But my mother was very anti-fast food. She just didn't think it was good for us. I think she was ahead of her time with that. There wasn't any fast food when I grew up. I'm that old. Fast food was boiling the cabbage for 10 minutes instead of 15. When I went to school, there was a wimpy bar when I was about 15. That's the first fast food place I can ever remember. But you both, what is interesting to talk to you both is that food was important to you and delicious food was important to you.

20:22and you grew up with a sense of that importance in your life. Well, meals were very social. It's when you got together. I mean, when I went to school, I had school meals, which were vile. That was a day school. That was just a state school. Just awful, awful, awful. But then you come home at night and that was the day. That's where you gathered. Breakfast was just on the run, really, to get to school. But the meal at night was always important. And, of course, the weekends, the Sunday lunch was really important. And when you both, in different stages of your life, left this cocoon of your grandmothers, your food, your mother rustling something up and a friend came for you to talk, when, each of you, would you tell me when did you leave home?

21:06When did you, how old were you when you suddenly were out on your own and thinking about food in your own way? When I was about, when I met Bernie, that was, what was I? I think 19 maybe or 20. And we shared a flat in Islington. And did it have a kitchen? It did have a kitchen, but I'm incapable of cooking anything. Okay. And Bernie is too. So we just ate out. What did you eat? You ate out all the time. Yeah. And would you seek out restaurants or would you just grab something? Fish and chips, stuff like that. Cheap things because we couldn't afford expensive things. But never. The first real exciting restaurant I went to was when Dick James took her to a restaurant off of Tottenham Court Road.

21:53Who was Dick James? Dick James was my publisher and my manager who, you know, published The Beatles. He was very famous. First person to sign up. Yeah. And so I went to this restaurant called La Maisonette and I had a prawn cocktail and I'd never seen anything like it. I didn't know what to do. What's this? So that was the first posh in inverted commas restaurant. that I ever went to. Paul McCartney told me that the same experience that he, when he went, was taken by, what did it be, Brian Epstein? Brian Epstein, yeah. To, again, another Ma Maisonette or Montclair or Montante. And it was suddenly an eye-opener.

22:33He said it was the first time. He'd only had cheap wine with John Lennon. And they couldn't understand the point of wine because it tasted so terrible because it was so cheap. and then he went and had a good glass of wine and realized what life could be. Did you have the same feeling about your prawn cocktail? Yeah, exactly. It was like, oh, and the bread was lovely and it was like beautiful bread rolled and crispy and you thought, well, this is a different, this is a step up. I mean, it's not the Aberdeen Steakhouse, this one. This is a proper restaurant. I'm sorry, Aberdeen Steakhouse. Yeah, you just really had a lot of people's feelings there.

23:10But to me, the Aberdeen Steakhouse was posh. That was posh, yeah. I remember once I was in New York and my parents used to take us as a special treat to this restaurant. And then I was with a girlfriend who was a friend of mine and she said her parents were deciding where to go out to eat. And they mentioned this restaurant and her parents said, oh, we're not going to a place like that. And I thought, that was our special place. Well, yeah, I thought the Aberdeen Steakhouse was the posthiest place in the world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What about you? When I was working in advertising, you know, you were taking out clients and you were entertaining them.

23:42So that was a little bit like being let off the leash to explore and have fun. And, you know, you wanted to treat your clients well and you were able to take them to nice restaurants. And Toronto, where I grew up, has a fantastic, it's a great restaurant town. It's very international. So what you get exposed to was very, very sophisticated and very worldly. And that was, I've never eaten like that in my life. That was really special. And so back to the apartment. You lived in Islington, UA. ate out, you sort of grabbed food, and then slowly with your success you were able to go. And at that point being able to eat food in other restaurants.

24:21When I became successful it was a different kettle of fish. I met people who were more sophisticated than I was, who knew the London restaurant scene and everything. And I started going to better places with them. It's just the journey. I was starting to play better venues. I was starting to eat at better restaurants. I was starting to earn more money I was starting to live in a better place and as you do things like that step by step you get introduced to different things and it was lovely it was a wonderful journey in every respect I never collected art until I suddenly became wealthy enough to buy some prints the whole journey just went hand in hand and yes I loved going to lovely restaurants I remember when I first went there was two restaurants in Cabernet Garden called The Garden and Inigo Jones.

25:12Inigo Jones, I remember Inigo Jones. I used to go there all the time. That was English food, wasn't it? Yes. Being called Inigo Jones, yeah. Did you go to Greek or did you discover Japanese? No, I never went abroad at all, hardly. I went to America, but I never really ate in France because I never really went to France or Italy or any place. That came later on. I was introduced to America in cuisine in inverted commas. I don't really think they have a cuisine unless you're in the south and it's chicken and the food is incredible in the south yeah oh my god do you think what do you like in the south I like all sorts of things that aren't good for me like fried chicken fried chicken donuts if I had a death row meal it wouldn't contain anything except sweets because I can't eat them now so I'd have ice cream, donuts, apple pie, rhubarb crumble blah blah blah I get it Yeah.

26:06Yeah. So you don't need any sugar now at all. No.

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