Christine Baranski

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1:52Lennie Ware: Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware and we're in Mum's kitchen for, well, you are so excited Mum. I'm so excited. I'm a super fan of Burging on Stalker. Oh. I think. Because I'm so excited by meeting Agnes, Diane, Tanya. Oh my God, Mum. We've got Christine Baranski coming on the podcast. aka Dan Lockhart, Tanya from Mamma Mia and Agnes Van Ryan from Gilded Age. Wow, first name terms. I just know she's going to be... Hair's looking great mum. No, I'm trying my best, wait to see her hair dress. She has the biggest, best hair you've ever seen. And if she doesn't, I'm going to be really miserable and disappointed.

2:39Lennie Ware: Oh god. Won't let her in. Yeah. Christine Baranski is coming on to talk about being on the West End with Richard E. Grant in Hay Fever at the Wyndham's. And that just sounds perfect to me. Noel Coward. Noel Coward. Christine, Richard. Perfect. We're going. I think I'm going to miss it because I'll be on tour. No, we'll find a spot. Oh, I'd like to. She's in rehearsals, so she's coming straight from rehearsals now. And we're very excited to have her. and mum is on cooking duty. What have you made? Oh, God. I've made salmon with turmeric, chilli, ginger and vermicelli noodles. Come and tell everyone where it's from.

3:23Lennie Ware: From our favourite cookbook of the year. It is the cookbook of the year for me. It's the greatest tray bake cookbook by our gorgeous John Gregory Smith, who's getting married soon. Oh, nice. We need to send him a wedding present. It is the gift that keeps on giving. I think it's probably the cookbook that we've used the most. I haven't done a salad. Do you think I need a salad to go with the salmon? It's got vegetables on it. Does it have, like, beans and stuff in it? No. What's it having there? It has spring onions. That's not a salad, Mum. No, shall I do a little gem salad? I would have done it with, like, sugar snaps or...

3:58Lennie Ware: Well, he didn't say to serve it with anything because it's like with vermicelli, but I could just do some little gem lettuce. Or broccoli. Maybe broccoli. Do broccoli. I think broccoli with some sesame oil and lime and sesame seeds. Oh, okay. Okay. Fuck off. I haven't factored that in. Okay, don't worry then. I'll have to get my broccoli out. Christine Baranski coming up on Table Miners.

4:31Lennie Ware: Christine Baranski, thank you for being here. Thank you for having me. As I told you at the door, you may not be allowed to leave. Fine with me. I'm in good company. No, mum, just tell Christine what you do when you go to the hairdresser. I take a photo of you. No. I'd like my hair. I want big hair like Christine Barunsky. Oh, well, I lucked out. I do have nice, you know, I have nice thick hair. You've got very thick hair. Can you do it yourself? Well, I can. My little secret, I have electric curlers. And what I do is good old-fashioned electric curlers. and I put them in just for maybe 10 minutes, take them out and either put a Velcro in, like a big Velcro, and then take it out.

5:14And I get that sort of blow-dried look because I don't know, how do women blow-dry their own hair? I'm so bad at it. Well, do you really want to spend that amount of time going like that? It's like a bar class. It's, you know, exhausting. So hair is an issue. Yeah. It's a real thing for women and for men now too.

5:35Lennie Ware: How are you going to wear it on hay fever? I'm going to have a wig. Are you? And it's 1920, so it's short. And I sort of love this look, but it'll be a bob. The women then had a bob with various hair ornaments and, you know, beautiful costumes. Where are we up to in the Gilded Age in terms of time? Is it 19? Oh, no, it's 18. Still 18? Oh, yeah, we're still in it. Okay. Because there was a motor car in it. Yes, but that was just the beginning of a motor car. Though this Gilded Age takes place shortly after the Civil War when there was an economic boom in the North, and it was really the beginning of American capitalism.

6:18And you're seeing this extraordinary display of wealth because these robber barons were rather like the robber barons of today, these billionaires. They were just making so much money, and they invested it in buildings and architecture and a way of life that imitated European royalty, really. They wanted to live like princes and kings, and so they imported all of this furniture, paintings, whole buildings from Europe to replicate palaces and villas and castles that the Europeans could no longer afford to maintain that. So they were selling off their houses. Do you know what I mean?

7:04Lennie Ware: And that's why in the Gilded Age, we called them million-dollar princesses. The mothers wanted their daughters to marry European royalties. They had the money. The American families had the money. The Europeans had the titles. Yeah. So that's the story of, you know, Consuela Vanderbilt. You know, she didn't want to marry the Duke, but she did. And then she wound up having a rather really worthwhile life because she became someone who was very active politically for women's rights. Anyway, it's a fascinating age. And so many Americans and probably English as well do not know about this period in American history.

7:49Yeah. Yep.

7:50Lennie Ware: And the old money. You're old money, aren't you? I'm very old money. Or old no money now. Of course she's old money. No, she's old no money. Oh, oh, oh. Oh, because I lost money. Yeah, she lost all her money with her reckless son. How many seasons? How many seasons? You're on to four now, aren't you? You? Have you seen the fourth season? No. Maybe you haven't. It's, oh, no, of course you haven't seen it. You've seen, the public has seen three seasons. The fourth season will be released in November in America, but I don't know when. I think it's January here. Yeah. Oh, you're going to love it. I can't wait.

8:25It's so extraordinary. And we're hoping for a fifth season because it's become so popular.

8:30Lennie Ware: I haven't watched it yet. I am desperate to, I'm going on tour soon, and I'm going to be in America, so I'm going to enjoy this. But my mum and everyone that I speak to that's watched it is obsessed. And you have a huge gay following. I guess so. Yeah. Yeah. I think we've got a lot in common. We do. And also, we have something else in common, that we go to Skopulos. That's where I've got a little house. No, no. Was this before Mamma Mia? Yes. I loved Skopulos. Yeah, I would just come back. Was it spared all the fires and all from, you know, because Greece? Yeah, Skopulos wasn't hit by fires. Thank God.

9:11We shot Mamma Mia one in Schiapos. Yeah. And Skopulos. but Scorpos, all that green, all those beautiful evergreen trees. It's gorgeous. That's where I shot Does Your Mother Know on the beach.

9:26Lennie Ware: I know Castani Beach is now a big kind of party beach. And I feel like you're responsible for that. Yeah. Okay. It wasn't a beach before. They kind of created it for the film. And then it became the Mamma Mia Beach. But Jessie also was in a Mamma Mia, choosing someone to appear in Mamma Mia. So she knows Judy Kramer very well. Yes. Judy Kramer. I know. Well, I mean. She's now my girlfriend. She's Fabita. She is fabulous. I have a beautiful place to live in London, thanks to Judy Kramer, because I said, Judy, I'm coming to London to do this play. Any ideas? I think I'd like to live kind of Chelsea, Kensington.

10:12She had a friend who rents out a townhouse. I'm now in this beautiful, beautiful neighborhood in Kensington. But Judy and I, she's Tanya 1 because she was the original. She identifies with Tanya. Tanya, of course, Judy Kramer. Anyone who knows Judy Kramer would know she's Tanya. And so she's T1 and I'm T2. So when we do emails like, hi, T1, T2 here, do you know? she put me onto hairdressers, reflexologists, physio, colorist, you know, I have Judy Kramer's team for, you know, while I'm in London, not a bad team.

10:49Lennie Ware: We're going to talk about many things, but I do feel like we should talk about Mamma Mia 3. What do we feel? Well, everybody asks about it. Judy is working on it. I can only say, you know, I've always been reluctant to say anything because it goes viral and it spreads like brush fire even if you say maybe everybody especially the gays say oh no it's happening I don't know if it's happening but Donna Langley who is you know the head of Universal Studios she green lights projects she actually was on a red carpet saying yes there will be a Mamma Mia 3 so and we're campaigning for Skopelos oh I know we think you should return back yeah oh that would be so great to go back to Greece we had so much fun um can we go back to where you grew up and who was around the dinner table and what was a memorable dish from your childhood oh it's so sweet as I was driving here I was looking in the neighborhood this is somewhat like where I grew up because it was a real neighborhood it was a Polish American neighborhood and all the houses were all close together.

11:56Everybody had a little narrow driveway. My best friend was right across the street. The town park was right down the street. The public pool was there. I walked to grammar school. I walked to church. I grew up in a Polish Catholic setting, and it was a blue-collar neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. And because it was Polish-American, my grandmother, my nana, lived with us. She was my father's mother, and she lived with us until I was eight years old. And it was a very happy childhood up till then, because we celebrated Polish traditions, and my grandmother and my mother were wonderful cooks. And I remember growing up with Polish cooking, and Christmas was Polish mushroom soup and pierogies and beautifully prepared food.

12:47And we would sit at Christmas Eve for what's called Wigilia and have the Christmas Eve and then go to midnight mass. Much of what my upbringing was based on Polish Catholic traditions. And as I said, I went to Polish Catholic school. I mean, we didn't speak Polish in the school, but it was Polish American. And we had to go to mass every morning and certainly every Sunday. And then I went to high school at an all-girls Catholic high school. So my upbringing was very much influenced by a Polish-American background and by people who loved Polish cooking. The sad thing is my dad died when I was eight years old.

13:33Oh, that's very young. And my mother, who loved cooking, and she was a wonderful baker, she could follow a recipe precisely, and she made wonderful cakes, pies, donuts. She loved being a housewife. When my dad got back from the war, they got married, and she was one of those 50s housewives. She wanted to stay home and have a family. Well, he died suddenly of an aneurysm, and suddenly she had to be the breadwinner. So after that, I became like a latchkey kid who came home, and I knew mom was going to come home from work and she wouldn't have time to prepare a nice meal. So it was canned food and frozen food and, you know, food that was quickly prepared.

14:19And she'd come home from work, usually in a bad mood from having a stressful job. So there were two parts of my childhood. One was before my father died. And then after the age of eight, we moved away from my beloved grandma. And then it was another we moved into another house and I had another kind of childhood without without my dad with my mom having to be you know the single mom raising kids.

14:47Lennie Ware: Was it just were you an only child? No I had an older brother. And what so take us through that Christmas Eve Polish dinner is it lots of fish? It's fish it's a day of fest so we had breaded It was usually breaded, flounder, and homemade pierogi and cabbage. But the pièce de résistance was the Polish mushroom soup. And that was made with imported, they called them gżybe Polish mushrooms. And they would usually, we'd have to go to the Polish market to get the Polish mushrooms. But it took a few days to make this soup. And so the house smelled. I mean, I still, it's, I can, I can, you know, just recall how the house felt.

15:35And, you know, when there's cooking going on for days in a house, the vibe in the house is just so beautiful. and there was great care taken with the setting of the table, the white tablecloth and the candles and the decorations. And I was a little girl and I remember just loving just the atmosphere in the house. I was so happy. And then after dinner, we went into the living room and sang Christmas carols. Some of them were Polish Christmas carols, some of them were... But we all sat around and sang Christmas carols and then open presents. So Christmas for me is the happiest memory for me as a child was the Polish Christmases.

16:19And then not having them after my dad died, it was never quite the same.

16:24Lennie Ware: I'm sorry. Oh, that's all right. I think every life has some story. When did you start acting then? Did you go to an after-school club or was it later? So this grandmother that lived with us, she was an actress in the Polish theater in Buffalo. And she married my grandfather. I did not know my paternal grandfather. He died before I was born. Was he Polish as well? Oh, yes, he was Polish. And they acted in the Polish community theater in Buffalo. And my grandmother also sang. She sang in operettas and she had a beautiful singing voice. but I remember growing up with a woman. We shared a bedroom.

17:10We had twin beds, and she and I shared a room in the back of the house, and she was warm and emotionally generous and eccentric. I always said she was like my Auntie Mame. She was kind of worldly. She had European friends, friends who definitely were Polish, and they came, and sometimes they would party late into the night, and Nana was there singing and making a lot of noise in the living room with her friends. But she had a great influence on me. She had a real theatricality to her, and I think she also loved performing. She loved singing. She loved Polish dance. My fondest memory of my father was going to see a Polish dancing and singing troupe called Schlonsk, and they performed in Kleinhans Music Hall, which was like the Carnegie Hall of Buffalo, still is.

18:04and he took me, and this was shortly before he died. I was a little girl. I must have been seven or eight, and I was on a date with my dad. He was a very big man, tall man, and I was sitting on the aisle, and he was sitting next to me, and it was all of this Polish folk dancing, right, and beautiful, beautiful costumes and twirling dancing and everything, And at the curtain call, this troupe of singers and dancers, they had these beautiful long scarves. And they waved scarves at the audience to say goodbye. And suddenly I heard my father, because the audience was applauding, and I heard my father shouting, bravo, very loudly.

18:52And I looked up and tears were running down his face. And he was shouting and I was so embarrassed that my father was, you know, I'd never heard such a thing. And I said, tatusz, tatusz means father in Polish. Tatusz, stop, you know, stop. And he was so moved by the performance. and I will never forget that because I thought, well, my father had such a love of the performing arts that I think that lasted me my whole life, that my father and my grandmother loved music, they loved ballet, they loved certainly Polish folk music and so I grew up with people who loved, who appreciated performance And my dad wanted me to study ballet.

19:46So from a young age, I went to ballet class. My mother then, after my dad died, she said she couldn't afford it. So I'd go one day a week on a Saturday morning, I would go down the block to Eugenia Zostampovsky's dance studio. Oh, wow, that's so helpful. Zostampovsky. And she married someone named Smith, so she became Jeannie Smith. Well done. From Eugenia Zostampovsky. may she rest in peace and I took a half hour of ballet and a half hour of tap dancing that was my first training as a performer how much can you learn in a half an hour but we had a dance recital and we did tap and we had ballet and from there I entered high school and there was a a wonderful drama teacher and I finally maybe auditioned for her or something but by the end of my sophomore year I started doing plays and I think she recognized that I had talent and so then I started doing more and by the my senior year I played MAME in MAME so that was our big school play and um so that's that's the beginning of the story but then while I was in high school I read an article in Buffalo Evening News, our local paper, that Juilliard was opening an acting division.

21:15Because the Juilliard School was known. What was it before? It was strictly music. Oh, really? Yeah. Juilliard didn't have dance and acting until the late 60s. So in 1968, it opened up the drama division. and I read about this and I thought I'd do anything to go to New York and to study and so I put the article on on my wall and I said that's my goal I really want to go there so it's a long story of how I got in because I was wait-listed but I did I got into Juilliard and then that was really the beginning of a very nice long trajectory because it was really good training.

21:55Lennie Ware: Can we talk about Hay Fever? Yes. So you've just come from rehearsals. How's Richard E. Grant? Oh, he's divine. You two together. He should be here with me. We'd love him. Please put in a good word. Oh, God. I love I do interviews, but my favourite is to do interviews with Richard E. Grant. You could have brought him. Could I? He's so welcome. I'm going to tell him that. How long have you been rehearsing for? I think we're in our third week. But I started working on the script months ago. I would take this script, which I have in my purse, onto the set of The Gilded Age and in between takes, I would just be working, working, working on Judith Bliss to learn the lines because it's an English role, of course, and I'm doing this on the West End with all English actors.

22:50How's the English accent going? I'm trying. I'm, I'm, I'm, and it's, you know, it's terribly, terribly. It's, it's Noel Coward English. You know, it's that. You sound perfect. Oh, you see. If you want to do the whole of this episode, it, practicing, you're, you're very welcome to go into that. Oh, but then people would write in and say certain sounds were wrong. So I sort of drop it, but no, it's, it's challenging. It's one of the reasons I wanted to do it is because I have always from the time back Back at Juilliard. No, back in Buffalo. I remember getting recordings of Olivier doing Hamlet or seeing Olivier's Othello in the movie theater in Buffalo or going to Stratford, Canada and seeing Shakespeare.

23:37I've always been utterly captivated by classical acting and certainly by British actors. I have a crush on so many English actors, but so many great English actresses. I mean, you know, you've got Maggie Smith and Judi Dench, and you've got Helen Mirren and Emma Thompson and Leslie Manville and Eileen Atkinson and Julie Walters. I mean, they're just one after another of these marvelous actresses. And there's an English acting tradition that I find just, I love it. I've been inspired by it. So my desire to do this is somehow like a wanting to just enter that that terrain of being on the West End with English actors doing a Noel Coward play as an American actress but just sort of upping my game and trying to you know do this.

24:36So it's wonderfully challenging.

24:38Lennie Ware: So do you live in New York? I spend most of my time in New York. My family home and where I raised my two daughters is in Connecticut. Oh, are you near like where Gilmore Girls is sat? That's where I, yes. That's where I live. Stars Hollow. Yeah. Stop. Yes, that's my tummy. That's my dream. Well, come and stay at my house. I have a lovely house. I absolutely will. A lovely house on a lake. And yes, we have Gilmore Girls stuff all over the place. Yeah. Can you imagine? So I've just introduced my daughter to Gilmore Girls. And she's 10 and I felt like it was okay to that the age. And I'm like, isn't it the best place?

25:20Lennie Ware: And I know you can go around there and like do tours. It's amazing. I don't know whether people that are residents appreciate that, but I really want to take my daughter when she's watched the full series, we'll go and we'll go and fall and we'll go and like pick pumpkins. I don't know. We get my, we'll exchange information. You can be our tour guide. Yes. You come to my house. I'll feed you. Okay. Yeah. Sounds great. It sounds perfect. So Connecticut, was it a gorgeous place to bring up your daughters? Beautiful. And the reason we raised the kids there is because my late husband inherited his childhood home, which was an 18th century farmhouse in this little rural town of Bethlehem, Connecticut.

26:02And that's not the Gilmore Girls Town. The Gilmore Girls Town, I think, is Washington, Connecticut. But I'm not exactly sure. I just know that there's all kinds of Gilmore Girls vibes in the town and notices of tours and all. So I think that's Gilmore Land.

26:19Lennie Ware: Is Harvard and Yale in Connecticut? Yes. It's another part of Connecticut. But when I got pregnant with my second daughter, Lily, it was clear because we were theater actors that it was really hard to find a place to live in New York where we could afford an apartment. It was getting very expensive in New York. And we were basically theater actors. This is before I had a television career. So he had this house in a lovely rural part of Connecticut, forests and ponds and winding roads, and it was so beautiful. And it was a house with no mortgage, and the price tag was that it was two hours from New York.

27:03And so I would commute when I did plays. I would get on a bus. at 4 I'd get on the 415 bus from Southbury and Southbury was a half hour from where we lived so I'd drive to the bus station get on a bus be on the bus for 2 hours get off at the Port Authority on 42nd Street walk to the theater, do the play and then go back to the Port Authority to get the 1115 bus home which got in at 1 in the morning and I would get home And then I'd get my sleep and I'd wake up and take the kids to school. And that was my life for quite a while.

27:42Lennie Ware: You must have loved this person a lot. I love, well, you know what? Your life in Connecticut. I did. And also it was, you know, a choice we made that, no, we were going to raise our kids outside the city. So, yeah, it's a lovely place to raise children. And it's supposed to be autumn is your best time. Oh, yeah. Well, we have tourists come in autumn because it's so already. It'll be me and my daughter. I have to talk to that. Oh, you'll come. Oh, I can't wait. It really is beautiful. I used to watch Sybil so religiously. Yeah. Was that the kind of break for you in television? Yes, yes. And I didn't, you know, I had this theater career with the buses, back and forth, back and forth.

28:24And I'd be approached about doing a television show, and I'd say, don't want to raise the children in L.A. My husband and I didn't want to move to Los Angeles. I didn't want to uproot them

28:36Lennie Ware: You're so East Coast though I'm very East Coast And also being someone whose childhood was rocked by having to move and change schools and change houses I know that that's a big deal for kids to be uprooted and I didn't want that neither did Matthew We didn't want to uproot them I was not keen on a Los Angeles life with all the cars and all. It's just not my kind of town. So we didn't, and I resisted doing anything that shot in LA. So I'd say if there was a comedy that shot in New York, but at that time, this was the eighties, they weren't shooting shows in New York. They were shooting Law and Order.

29:23That was the television show and every theater actor was on Law and Order, but they weren't doing, it's not like it is now where they do so many shows in New York. Finally, though, Carsey Warner, the people who produced the Bill Cosby show and Roseanne, they were big, big producers. They actually asked if I would be interested in reading for an American version of AbFab, absolutely fabulous. And that perked up my ears because I thought, well, that really could be fun. And then they said, but we're also casting the role of Sybil Shepard's best friend in this sitcom. And I was really reluctant, really, really reluctant.

30:12But it seemed to me a time in my life when, in our life, where it was like we were looking at school tuitions and what the cost of raising the kids would be. and it's like, okay, well, I'll go to L.A. and I'll meet. But I read the script, and it was written by a man named Chuck Lorre, who now is maybe one of the top, most successful television producers, writers in Hollywood and maybe in history, you know, the Big Bang Theory. And I read for it, and they really, really wanted me to do it, and Sybil approved and the network reluctantly approved. And so I thought, well, Matthew and I talked about it and said, look, why don't I just commute for the first year?

31:02We'll see how it goes. And so I wound up commuting on that job too, which was a much longer commute because I would finish the show and get on a red eye and get home and have the hiatus and then go back. But that lasted for three and a half years, which was enough for me. It was a big success. Yes, it was a big success. And if you watch the first half year, the first 13 episodes, I mean, I won an Emmy after only a half year of being on that show just because it was so good and that character just popped. And, you know, he wrote wonderful lines for me and she was sort of a perfect character for me at the time because I had been playing roles like that in the theatre.

31:47So I knew how to do that kind of comedy. So it was indeed, it changed my career. It changed my life. Oh, it looks lovely, Mum.

31:58Lennie Ware: Whoa, that looks gorgeous. Gorgeous. Mum, what have you made? I've made salmon with chilli, turmeric, dill, and the spring onions and ginger and all sorts of things on it. and I hope you like it. I'm so impressed with people who can cook. Oh, don't be impressed. It's not hard. Are you not a cook then? I can cook. I bet you can. It's just, you know, I need to cook for people. And when I was a working actress, I didn't have a lot of time, but on my day off I loved to cook. The time when I became a really good cook was when I was pregnant and I had a huge appetite and I was doing a show with Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close, a Tom Stoppard play called The Real Thing and it was a red-hot hit on Broadway.

32:44And yet I would go up in between scenes when I wasn't on the stage and I'd be looking at cookbooks, what I was going to make. And then I'd spent my day off cooking because I had a wonderful appetite, a robust, pregnant lady. Can I help you? Then I became a good cook, but I don't, you know, unless I have, oh, my God, that looks good. Unless I have people to cook for, I'm really not going to bother just to cook for myself, you know. also it takes a lot of time and then I usually have other things to do so that said I did a be my guest episode with Ina Garten wow went to her house thought okay well do you know Ina Garten

33:26Lennie Ware: and be my guest mom do you know who Ina Garten is I know her name Christine will you explain to mom who Ina Garten is well she's just one of the great most well-known ladies in America she's you know, started a business called the Barefoot Contessa. Oh, yeah, I know of that. Okay, in East Hampton, went on to become a world-famous, highly successful cookbook writer. Now she's just an icon, and she has her own TV show called Be My Guest, where she has people, like, you know, come into her kitchen, and she will cook with you. She'll say, what do you want to cook? and because I love Italian food, I said to her, I'd love to learn to make a Bolognese sauce.

34:13And she taught me to make this Bolognese sauce and I make it for my grandsons and they love it. And now I make it over and over. So it's one of my great joys is making Ina's Bolognese sauce. What's the secret? Yeah. Very basic. Basic. Milk?

34:31Lennie Ware: Is there milk in there? No, to the Bolognese sauce. There is cream. Ah, okay. There's red wine in it and cream. Yum. What's this for, Mum, this dipping? It's to go on top. Okay, fine. Go on top of this. Yeah, if you like it. Lovely. Thank you. Thanks, Mum. That's great. There you go, darling. I hope it's okay. It looks perfect. So maybe with Ina as a friend. I mean, how can you have Ina Garden as a friend and not be a cook? She's going to get me to cook. Thank you.

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38:03This is great. This is great. And it's so healthy.

38:06Lennie Ware: I like it. Love salmon. I also love really thin noodles. I mean, vermicelli. They're really nice. Well, they're like Asian noodles, aren't they? This is a great recipe. Great recipe. And it looks great. It's just hard to eat it gracefully. So if you see a noodle going, I'm shoving it in my mouth. You know how when you were a little kid and you did that thing with noodles? And they told you how impolite it was. So you said that Italian is your favourite. So I'm interested. We ask everybody their last supper. Start a main, pud, drink of choice. You don't have to die. You can go to a desert island.

38:47Lennie Ware: And what would be your last supper?

38:52It'll probably be a very, very cold, very dry Grey Goose vodka martini Dirty or? Oh no, so dirty, no vermouth Just a twist

39:10Lennie Ware: See, I told Jessie this, but none of us felt confident we loved it No, I can't do it You wouldn't have had one now No, I couldn't, no but I will on a night off I do. Have you had a good one since you've been in London? London has wonderful martini. And I'll tell you why. Oh tell us why. Oh well the famous Duke's martini of course but they're renovating so I don't know what's going to happen. They're so strong I know it's like. No you know what that is like rocket fuel. It's called Potaki. I don't even think they carry this vodka in the States but there is a Polish restaurant, you know, Ognisko.

39:50Here? Yeah, in London. I don't know. Oh my God. There are two great Polish restaurants in Kensington. When I was doing Mamma Mia.

39:59Lennie Ware: Oh, there's a Polish club. That's it. Oh, it's in the Polish club. It's in the Polish club. We've been there, Jessie. It's beautiful. It's fabulous. It's right next to the Victorian. It's next to the V &A. Near the Albert Hall. It's on that road. You can rent it out. And the food is great. And it's like shabby chic, isn't it? Yes, it's wonderful. It has an old world quality. But they serve that vodka. Okay. And I had... Which one is it? I think it's called Potaki. Okay. It's like rocket. It's not like other vodkas. And it's so strong you think, okay, this can't be good for me. But you have it anyway.

40:39What I love about an English martini is it's half the size of an American martini. And I think what you want from a martini is enough of it to just get your, I always say it just brings my shoulders down. So that's like, how many sips do we need?

40:55Lennie Ware: Four, five sips. I don't drink martinis. I love them. They're great. But you can't have more than two. No, I'm good for one and a half. But an American martini, because in America everything's super sized. Oh, they're huge. But the thing is, by halfway through that martini, it's already getting warm. You never drink a warm martini. You need an ice-cold, brisk martini. Even at the Carlisle, where they serve it in a carafe, do they? Yeah, they do that. Anyway, I love the English martinis. They're wonderful. So, you asked me about my last supper. So it would probably be a simply great steak au poivre with the most gorgeous French fries.

41:40See, I'm very basic. So I don't need fussy, fussy.

41:44Lennie Ware: Okay. We've got the steak au poivre. We've got the dirty martini. Is the martini the starter or are we going to have... Oh, yeah. It happens well before the entree. Okay. Because we just have to get the shoulders down and a bit of conversation. and then we can... And then you'd have wine with your meal. Okay, good. Probably. A great French... Nice read. ...son amelion. Yeah, I agree. And then, Pud, are you into dessert? You're going to laugh. You better be. No matter where I go, I could be in the fanciest French restaurant and I'll say, do you have chocolate ice cream? Oh, God. And if they have chocolate ice cream, I just say, I just want one scoop of chocolate ice cream.

42:36This is like my mom. One scoop of chocolate ice cream. Which probably reminds me of when I was a little girl and we had chocolate ice cream. And it remains my favorite dessert. So maybe for my last supper, two scoops of chocolate ice cream.

42:50Lennie Ware: Maybe three. Sure. See, it wouldn't be the one I choose, chocolate. Which one do you go for? Vanilla? I like cassata, which is that it's kind of, it's almost like a cake and you slice it and it's got like tutti frutti in it. Oh, wow. What you put in panettone, it's cassata. Where do you get that? Well, we used to get it at the Italian near Claire and now they've changed hands. But I like vanilla, to be perfectly honest. A great vanilla is wonderful. And I've got vanilla to go with the dessert if you want vanilla, but you can have creme fraiche. Have you ever put maple syrup on vanilla ice cream?

43:25Oh, it's wonderful. Oh, there we go. Absolutely wonderful. If you don't have chocolate sauce, it's just as good.

43:31Lennie Ware: Oh, that's a good trick. Okay. Now, can you tell us, tell everybody about Hay Fever, the play, and who you're playing? Noel Coward wrote it when he was in his 20s, which is hard to believe. It's one of his earliest plays. It is about an eccentric English family. the woman that I'm playing is Judith Bliss, a retired stage actress, very well-known stage actress who's getting a bit restless and living in the country, longs to get back on the stage. She's married to a novelist and he's upstairs writing his books. And I have two children, grown children living in the house with us. And it's the story of a Saturday into a Sunday with all of us inviting a house guest that the other people did not know.

44:25Other people were being invited, so it's a clash. It's a situation comedy, basically. And it's, well, it's very funny. It's Noel Coward, but it's a showpiece for actors. It's an ensemble piece, and it's a wonderful role for an actress. I'm surprised it's not done more often.

44:45Lennie Ware: Have you played it before? No, no. But I've done Noel Coward before. I've done three other Noel Coward plays, of course, in America. I had the pleasure of doing private lives back when I was in my 20s. I played it. And I did Blythe Spirit also and a play called Fumed Oak. But this is a real showpiece for an actress, perfect for my time of life because she feels that she's getting old and she's not quite ready to retire and she has one more play in her. And so I always say, if this is my last play, it's the perfect play to say, okay, bye. It won't be a last play. You've played in The Good Wife and The Good Fight.

45:33Lennie Ware: You played quite a political person. I did. She's a very passionate feminist. And that arc, well, certainly Good Wife, not so much, But by the time we got to Good Fight, Donald Trump was president. And the writing became a lot about Diane, this passionate feminist lawyer trying to live through an era that was, you know, just making her feel insane. And how's that going for you? Oh, we won't get into that. But I don't know where Diane would be now. Crikey. But, you know, banging her head against the wall. I always thought that that show really was the best reflection of what people were living through at that time.

46:24And it had to end. The Trump administration has continued. But for anyone wanting to know kind of what the era was like, that show was so brilliantly written.

46:37Lennie Ware: Wasn't that his first term, though? We didn't know he was coming back. no but if you look at the last our very last episode that audra and i play outside and we look we see him coming down the escalator again as he announces that he's going to run for a second term and that's where we end yeah and the show should i get some dessert that was really delicious i loved it was sublime whilst mum just sorts bits out have you got any food combos where it's so wrong it's right yeah oh yeah I'm I'm thinking because I'm so not a foodie well no I think if you put bacon into anything it's probably good because it's so bad do you know what I mean I know have you tried bacon ice cream no yeah I tried it in Portland years ago how does that work how can you have ice bacon I mean bacon has to be it kind of I think it was either like a crumbly bit they also had turkey skin like chicken skin it was delicious to be honest they can make ice cream out of anything now I think or pizza but I think a bit of bacon like on top of crispy bacon on top of the chocolate could work absolutely salt you know Oh lovely mum God that's gorgeous Did you bake this?

48:03Lennie Ware: Yeah She's good She's good I don't know them that good Would you like ice cream with it or creme fraiche? Creme fraiche Mum will you tell everyone what it is? It's a plum and frangipane tart That looks great Shall I give myself the creme fraiche? Thank you Jessie Yeah perfect mum That's perfect for me as well Thanks mum What do you think Christine? Oh, gosh, this is so good. I mean, it's better than chocolate ice cream. Oh, stop it. Almost. You know I love you, don't you? No. Almost as good as... Mum, this is heavenly. It's so... The crust is cake. It's all she made. Did you make your own pastry?

48:43Lennie Ware: Yeah. Mum. Because it's a pate sucre. Really impressive. Mum, this is good. Tell me the fruit again. It's just plums. Plums. But it's with frangipan, Grand Japan, which is almonds. Yes, that's what it is. My mum made almond pastry, and we did the almond pastry for Easter. Actually, it does have ground almonds in the pastry. Yeah. You did it for Easter. Go on. Mm-hmm. What would you be having at Easter? Oh. Easter, we would do collared eggs, of course. We'd do Polish sausage. and something called shan, which is ground beets with horseradish. And we would put together this meal and then put it in a straw basket and then take it to the church on Holy Saturday to get it.

49:41And everybody, the whole neighborhood would show up in the church auditorium and get the food blessed. And then we'd have the food the next day for breakfast after Mass. So sweet, these traditions. But the almond pastry we would make either for Easter or Christmas, and that's where you hope that the dough rot, you know, that it puffs, and sometimes it doesn't puff, so you just, it's like a flat croissant, you know, that didn't quite work. So I've made successful almond pastries and not so successful almond pastries.

50:21Lennie Ware: So you have kept up some of the traditions with your girls? Oh, yes, very much so. Yeah, we still do Polish Christmases. Yeah, I would like my grandsons to know what a Polish Christmas is. Yeah, I think people are longing to get back to traditions. Before we let you go, and you may have already answered this, because there was this moment when you talked about the mushroom soup. Is there a nostalgic taste that can transport you back somewhere? Yeah, the mushroom soup, I'm afraid. The taste of the mushroom soup. A warm chocolate chip cookie. Where was that? Chocolate. You love chocolate. Do you like English chocolate, like Cadbury's?

51:09Lennie Ware: No, what's English chocolate? Well, English chocolate, Cadbury's chocolate. Oh, Cadbury's, yes, yes. You make it sound so much more regal. Cadbury's. Oh, Cadbury's, Donny. Oh, I say Cadbury's. Do you like a Cadbury's dairy milk? I like dark chocolate. I like bitter. Bitter, the bitter, you know, like 80 % dark chocolate, that sort of thing. You don't go to sleep at night. I don't do milk chocolate. It's like vermouth and a martini. Oh, sorry. Why, God. Sorry. It's like non-alcoholic wine. If you have a dinner party, What would you cook for people? My new recipe of sauce bolognese, my Ina Gartney.

51:56If my four grandsons, the last time I made it for my grandsons, they had a second helping and one of them had a third helping and then they asked for it later on while we were watching a movie if there was any bolognese left. That's how good it was. And I take no credit for it.

52:13Lennie Ware: I'm going to look up that recipe. It's like an everyday recipe. Do you like music in the background when you're eating? Yes, I like music in general, anything. So what would you have? Oh, while people are eating, maybe some French cafe music or something just nice and easy. Not too, not too, too classical because then it seems a little snooty, but just relaxed, jazzy. Christine, you're such a joy. I mean, we knew this was going to be the way, but you've absolutely... I'm a little tired from after rehearsal. Oh, you don't seem tired to us. You're fantastic. And we appreciate you so much for coming over after rehearsal.

52:59Lennie Ware: Thank you for cooking for me. Oh, such a pleasure. Such an honour, really. No, I really admire great cooking.

53:22Lennie Ware: Christine Baranski what a gal and the hair the face the suit the voice so classy just gorgeous you see why I've got a crush on her yeah I mean have you got a crush on her now? but I feel lucky me I've got the Gilded Age and Good Wife and Fight to watch have you never watched them? no I don't know where I've been I see that Good Wife is like the best thing on TV. I know, but she's just so fantastic. She's amazing. She's, I just, it was an incredibly camp moment when you got your fan out and you're sitting fanning whilst chatting to Christine Baranski. Sorry. It was camp and fab and I liked it. Why was it camp?

54:02Lennie Ware: It was camp. I was hot. No, I don't know about camp. Christine Baranski and Rich D Grant are in Hay Fever at the Wyndham's Theatre in the West End. Go see it, no doubt. She'll be fantastic. and we know her English accent. Was it Judith Bliss? Yeah, Judith Bliss. Daughter. Daughter. The food was so good. Oh, good, darling. I'm doing that for a dinner party. That was so easy. Delicious, tasty, yum. Yeah. John Gregory Smith had done it again. Jesse, we need to send him a wedding present. Yes, we do need to send him a wedding present. Absolutely. At least a bottle of champagne. Where was the plum and frangie?

54:41Lennie Ware: It's a combination of different recipes that I put together. Can you say? Yeah, I can replicate it. No, but which... I can't even remember, darling. God, you're that gal now that you can do... Just merge them, darling. Mum, there was not a soggy bot in sight. It was so crisp. How did you do this? I don't know, darling. It's because you had Christine and you just knew you had to nail it. She loved it. It was delicious. It was just one of those recipes that worked. Delicious. Good. It was good. thank you to everyone for listening and we'll be back for more table manners season 19 next week