Zoe Saldaña

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1:05Hello and welcome to Table Manners. I'm Jessie Ware. It's a Sunday morning. Spring, quite springy. Springy as frost, Jessie. It's fucking freezing, actually. It's freezing. And we have... We've got spring flowers, that's it. Yes, we have daffodils on the tables. What's those ones? Hyacinths. Hyacinths that smell nice, don't they? What are they? I'm not a green-fingered gal. I do like them. We have Oscar nominee Zoe Saldana on. I'm so excited to meet her. And the weirdest thing happened last night. I went to see You Me Bum Bum Train, which is not... Stop showing off, Jess. Listen, I've been trying to see this show for 15 years.

1:45Managed to get a ticket. I went last night. I finished it. Read up on it. I can't explain this right now. And also, I'm sworn to secrecy. But who comes out straight after me? Zoe Saldana. Oh, my God. And I said, Zoe, I hate to interrupt you, but I'll see you at 10 o 'clock tomorrow morning. She was just, I think she was in a bit of a day. She went, okay, fine. So anyway, we can't talk about it even though that's all I want to talk about because we're sworn to secrecy and we signed an NDA. So, but me and her can go into a secret room and talk. You signed an NDA? Yes. And you paid to go and see it?

2:19Yes. It's very exciting. Anyway, Zoe Saldana's coming on. She's up for an Oscar for Emilia Perez. You'll know her from, maybe you know her from Crossroads, me, maybe you know her from Avatar, maybe you know her from Guardians of the Galaxy. But she is celebrating her nomination as Rita in Jacques O'Dea, his film Emilia Perez, which was on Netflix, and I really enjoyed. She was fantastic in it. I need to ask her whether Emilia Perez is based on a genre of Mexican film where you you sing in it, but it's not really a musical. There is singing, but I would not call that a musical. Or would you call it a musical?

3:04I mean, I don't think it's a Mexican genre. No, I just wonder, anyway, I'll ask her. What have I cooked? Well, it's a Sunday morning, and I've done a green shakshuka, which I've never made before. It's lovely. Which looks nice. It's lots and lots of herbs in. Gorgeous. Leeks, peas, spinach, and... Which herbs? Coriander, mint, and parsley. And I'm going to put eggs in it, and you serve it with harissa. Oh, yeah. I've done labneh instead of yogurt. Nice. And I'm going to do some halloumi. Mom, lovely. And then I've done a fruit platter, and I have made some gluten-free chocolate, double chocolate chip cookies.

3:46Thank Angela Hartnett recipe. They are... Delicious. Quite sweet, but delicious. Absolutely chewing delicious. A bit like macarons. Anyway, I've got those to go with it, and everyone can take some home. Amazing. Yeah. Pretty amazing, yeah. I've been up since I was seven, darling, just in case. We'll let Zoe know that in a minute. Yeah, I'll let her know. Okay, cool. And I did think I needed a facelift this morning. Why? Because it's all... You look amazing. It's all dropped, darling. It's all gone that way. Mum, you look very good. Thank you, darling. Is it because you've been looking at my skin?

4:22Because I'm investing in it so much. I was thinking that I need a collagen facial every time we do a podcast. You should just drink collagen. Can I just say one thing? Yeah. I was at our local pub at the Abbeville on Friday, and two people came up to me and said, Lenny. And I think I know them when they go, Lenny. And I go, turn around, and I think, do I know you? And then they say, we're such fans of the podcast. so please to anyone who does come up to me and says Lenny and I look like I'm a bit confused thank you very much for recognising the podcast but I'm embarrassed and I did blush twice and I was with a group of friends who were also embarrassed on my behalf so what you want them to come and say hi to you with a disclaimer that says I am a fan of the podcast Lenny no I just want them to I'm really thrilled that people love our podcast but please respect my privacy no No, it's nothing to do with that.

5:19Are you going to Chapel on last month? I don't need to respect anything. Oh, then he's on Chapel Road. Oh, someone's at the door.

5:31Now, listen, I've been saying your name wrong forever. Is it Zoe Saldana? It is, yeah. Have you got a squiggle? No, on my birth certificate. I was born in New York, New Jersey. Yeah. And on my birth certificate, they didn't put it on. So I'm technically Zoe Saldana. Was that a mistake that they didn't put it on? No. In the, you know, the birth certificate department? I think that back in the day, it was an entitlement of like, well, this is America, this is English, that doesn't exist, so we're not going to put it. Interesting. Versus like now there's just, there's this mindfulness of how do you want to be called?

6:09Yes. How are you? What is your name? and that I truly appreciate that gave me permission to make that choice. Coming to that awareness of like, wait a minute, this is not my full name. My full name is Zoe Saldana. Oh, it's gorgeous. And I just, I'm like, it's no longer my job to help you pronounce my name. But it's also like, it's also my job not to take it personally if you can't. So, you know what I mean? Well, hold on. How do you say you're Zoe? Do Zoe. Oh, and the way that my family says it in Spanish is soy. Soy. Soy. Okay. Soy. Soy. And then the accent on the E. Soy. Soy. So what do you think your name means?

6:50Is it got to be in Spanish? It is Greek. And it means life. It means life. We have a Greek. Yes. So I just, yes. So yeah, because I, that's what I was going to say, it means life. How do you know that? I just know that Zoe means life. Oh, right. In Greek. All right, fair enough. But I just wondered, is that why they chose it? um my mom was liking that name a lot okay and from what i hear my mom and my dad they were really young parents and they they either were making love or they were fighting you know love and and um and i guess that throughout my pregnancy my mom and my dad were at each other's wits and and um they couldn't decide on a name because my dad wanted to name me jadira which is my second name and then when my mom learned that it was based on an old girlfriend of his she's like i'm I'm not going to name my kid with you the name of some ex-girlfriend that you still, it's like, fuck you.

7:41So they, and she liked Zoe. She, she, there was something about Zoe, Zoe, Zoe. And, and that she was orbiting that name. Cause where we grew up in New York and Queens and also in New Jersey at the time, it was a very Greek, Puerto Rican, Dominican, Brazilian, Indian like neighborhoods, you know? And so then they made peace. I'm born. they give her a book of names she goes straight to the z finds she goes if the name is here it's going to be zoe and she found it's going and it's like it's going to be zoe it's and it's just z-o-e no y no ie or whatever it's just z-o-e and um and then my and then she told my dad because they made peace she was like and we can name her jadira as your second name there you go so it's zoe jadira okay let's talk about well congratulations you're up for everything thank you and you've already won one yes yes we're up for a lot yes and we you were we love Rita thank you it was such a I mean okay mum has a question about the musical aspect I wondered is it a genre of Mexican film that there is singing but I wouldn't call it a musical would you call it a musical no but I wondered if it's a genre of Mexican film no no no I think okay um not that I'm aware of though I'm sure that films in Mexico have been, you know, been musicals before because the Mexican cinema is so rich and so beautiful.

9:08And I grew up watching Mexican cinema. Talented people like Cantinflas, who was sort of the Charlie Chaplin in a way of Mexico. La India Maria was this prolific comedian actress that did great movies that were funny and humorous, but also thought provoking. And, and, and I've, I mean, I've, I've seen black and white cinema. I've seen silent movies in Mexico. So from, of Mexico. But this movie didn't really feel, I have to say it felt Mexican, but also it didn't. It felt very dystopian, hyper real set upon a world that was, there was inspiration from Mexico taken into consideration, but it wasn't, it's an experience.

10:00I don't even call it a musical. I don't call it a drama. It's a compilation of so many things. I do believe that what Jack was attempting to do was break the mold of just like, oh, of genres and break the mold of, you know, like manuals, like art manuals of like, this is the formula when you're going to do a musical or there's the formula when you're going to tell a drama he just wanted to kind of give himself that freedom it's like an experience you know can we we we will talk about Amelia Perez a bit more later but can we bring it back to your childhood you lived in New York you lived in your heritage is Dominican but you're on your have you got Colombian in you no no no little Puerto Rican little Puerto Rican and three quarters Dominican so what was a traditional dish that you would eat around the dinner table together or one of your favorites around the dinner table um and who was there you can plantains are our potatoes so you can have plantains in the morning at noon and also you know at night that's a very heavy dinner sometimes it was just right um which is um it's it's just milk it's it's a it's like a rice a risotto a risotto done in milk yeah But not sweet.

11:21You can have it sweet or you can have it savory. And it's savory because you can put some Parmesan cheese on top or you can put like sugar on top. And I remember that I would put sugar and cinnamon powder on top. So it's like a porridge. Yeah. Yeah. And you do it at night because the milk and the rice, the starchness of the rice, it's just very soothing and I guess it just relaxes you and puts you to sleep. Who's cooking? Everybody. it's in my at least in my household um there were some all the women it was I grew up in a mainly matriarchal kind of structure they were husbands always around great grandpa grandpa dad dads you know because I've had I have two fathers um the one I lost and the one that I I was gifted again to have and and then uh and a lot of uncles and aunts but it's mainly the women that that are in the kitchen did you all speak spanish to each other yeah it's our first language that's your first language and then you're you you've got english you speak french no i've i've picked up italian because of my husband and what other languages that's it through my italian i'm able to sort of understand uh french yeah uh when when the french want to be understood because then there in the paris is kind of like new york is kind of like london where there's the slangs are actually much more prominent and colloquially spoken over the formalities of their language.

12:48So I'm able to pick up 30 to 50 percent sometimes of French and then Brazilian Portuguese, not Portuguese that's spoken in Portugal. Wow. But remember, I speak a romantic language. So within that, I'm able to sort of dabble. I can get by in all the other four. I'm so jealous. But your Spanish is slightly different from European Spanish as well. The way you say the C and the Z. Yes, exactly. So when did you, you were born in New York. Were you born in New York? In New Jersey, New Jersey. I want to be always honest because I like, I dig New Jersey. But we're New Yorkers through and through. But so the cultures you were talking about, Greek and some of these other cultures that were around, what was some of the food that you were eating if you were around your friends or what was memorable dishes from some of those like neighbors?

13:39Well, I come from a very just culturally diverse family. So from our inception. So my grandpa worked at a pizzeria and it was an Argentine pizzeria. So I grew up eating Argentine pizza and also like New York pizza. And they would do empanadas and focaccias at my grandpa's pizzeria where he worked. What was it called? I don't remember. Where was it? It was in Jackson Heights. Like maybe three blocks from where we grew up. And his days off were Mondays. And on Mondays he would make un asado argentino and they would drink wine. So I remember being... What is it? Un asado is like, you know, it's like they grill all the meat.

14:24It's a very Argentine way of eating. It's like meats and potatoes and cheese on the side and, you know, so and then all the neighbors would come and sometimes the Argentine, you know, uh, partners of him at the pizzeria would come. So I grew up in a, and I grew up in a neighborhood that was very Colombian, Puerto Rican, Brazilian, Greek, black. Um, so it was a melting pot of all these things. I, I remember the very first time I tasted like fried chicken and waffles, which is a very African American way of eating or Southern way of eating. And I was just like, so amazed that I'm like, well, this is the perfect definition of brunch in my mind, you know, because we didn't really brunch.

15:03We don't have like sweet breakfast. Yeah. Sometimes we would have like an American breakfast, but I was, I was a daughter of immigrants and in our house, it was very Dominican. It was just very Dominican and Caribbean. So, um, but on the weekends, if people were going to like a diner to have pancakes, you know, with their families, we were going to Chinatown or in Flushing, which is a big, big Asian diaspora. And we were having dim sum or, you know, if we wanted to go for Chinese, if we wanted Japanese, we would have shabu shabu. If we wanted Korean, we would have the barbecue. So it was, I grew up just always understanding cultures through their foods.

15:42Or we would have Indian because just 20 blocks from where we lived, just one train stop away from us was a very big Indian diaspora. So sometimes my mom and my grandma, they would want their goat stew and they would go to this Indian restaurant that was kind of like a buffet and I would eat like all the sakpaneer and the chicken tikka masala and I would have lentils there and I remember thinking like after my grandmother's rice my second favorite rice is the Indian rice. Let's talk about rice actually. Please, let's do it. You've got a, I'm glad we didn't do rice today because I've heard you're very judgmental about rice.

16:16Oh my God. Yeah, I read a condo in Africa. I would have kept it to myself. No, no, you say you really judge a person on their rice cooking. I do, I do. Because it's like, what is, I mean, I would ask you guys, what is your simple dish that you really have to be like, to F it up, you know? You judge somebody on their chicken soup for matzo balls. You do. You absolutely, you do. You'll compare the hardness of the ball and you will. Yeah, I suppose. And the flavor of the stuff. The broth, right? Exactly, the depth of the broth. Yes, I believe that. So I want to say. Thick matzo balls. And I'm like, I don't like the dense, you know?

16:55So how is Zoe cooking her rice? Okay, so we saute our rice before we put the water in it. Okay. We don't just put water on a pot and then throw the rice in there. Okay, I'm learning. It's a couple of steps. So what are you sauteing it with? Oil or butter? Just olive oil. No, I do not cook rice with butter. Okay. That's very Italian. I learned that after I married the Italians, and I'm very much like butter in my rice unless I'm making that milk risotto. But okay, so you put olive oil and you add the salt. You wait for that oil to sort of, you know, to start getting warm or hot. And then while you're doing that, you're rinsing your rice over and over and over again.

17:38When I lived in Dominican Republic, I would sit down with my great-grandmother right on the floor next to her chair and we would spread the rice and clean it because the rice would come straight from the field into, once it was processed, basically dried, dehydrated or whatever, it would be put in a sack of rice. So you would get these sacks. We ate, I grew up eating very farm to table, very homestead. That's why I'm a little picky eater. Now that, you know, we're living in an era of everything is so processed, you know. And you would pick all the rocks out of it and all the rice that looked different from each other.

18:14if you wash the rice a couple of times and then you rinse it and then when the oil is hot you put it in there and you have to hear it does that little sizzling sound you know and then you saute it and then a couple for a couple of minutes and then you add your water but you don't add so much water you add enough water that if you put a spoon or a fork or a knife it can still stand you don't want you don't want pasty sticky rice unless that's your intention if that's your Sometimes jasmine rice is a bit stickier. Well, it just has to do with the level of water. But here's the trick. Come on. You don't just cover it at high heat or whatever.

18:51Or lower the heat and cover it and forget about it. Because that takes too long. And then the rice then spends too much time soaked in that water. You keep it at high heat. You wait for that water to evaporate. And when the water is evaporated, then that's when you cover your rice and you lower your heat. So you'll get that grainy, delicious rice. Every little grain is oily. It's really good. Wow. Yeah. That's like a whole bum bum train experience with rice. It is, I'm telling you. But let's say sometimes my stepdad wants coconut rice. So my mom, you know, then you have to make it a little sticky.

19:26Yeah. Because it has a cream. What, to just put coconut cream in? It's a very Caribbean thing to do. Well, when we lived in the Caribbean, you'd get the coconut, you grate it, you squeeze it, you get milk. Which bit of the Dominican Republic were you? I grew up in Santa Lomingo in the capital. I thought it was beautiful. It's so large. It's just the vegetation. It's just gorgeous. Well, and a beautiful piece of history is that we share the island with Haiti. Yeah. And Haiti was the very first nation in the Americas to be completely independent. Oh, really? Yes. And after that, then Dominican Republic, then other Caribbean islands, and then South America and Central America, and then inherently the United States.

20:09But Haiti gets such a bad rap. It does. And it doesn't have the tourism that Dominican Republic has. It does. And my experience, I can only speak from my experience, because I'm very proud. My family has always been very understanding and lived peacefully side by side with Haiti. But they are two very different nations, two different cultures. Even though we share a geographical land. How did they come to Sharon Island? I just had to do with colonization. Yeah, oh, right. And they said, well, put those people there and these people here. No, not really. It's just when they discovered when the Europeans came, France went to one portion, Spain went to another, and the English went to another.

20:54Yeah, it's like South Africa. The Dutch went to it, and they started killing each other for the land because the lands were full of gold. So when you go to churches in Spain, a lot of them are filled with gold that comes from stolen land. So to know our history means everything to us. And we embrace all of our components to our composition. We embrace our Iberian heritage. We embrace our African heritage and our indigenous. So was it when you got... Sorry, Mom, should I put the food on? No, I'll do it. Oh, wait a minute. Can I help? No. Why? No, no. You need to sit. By the way, the very Dominican thing is like how...

21:32If my mom were here or my grandmother, she'd be like, get up, go help. No, I'll tell you if I need to. Sorry, Mum. What were you going to ask, though? Well, I wanted to ask where you got married and whether it was a Dominican cuisine or an Italian cuisine. I got married here in the UK. What? Of course you did. I read that. You got married in London. But whilst you get the eggs on, I'm going to ask about what was on the menu at your wedding. Oh, my God. It was so delicious. And why did you do the UK? Because I was working here. You just had to fit in the wedding quickly. Well, because my husband and I were very fast and furious.

22:06I love that. In everything that we do, it's like love the hard way, love the fast lane way. And I was shooting a movie here and it was mainly my idea. Marco is more of like the feminine spirit. He's the flower and I'm the thorn. But just remember too, like flowers need thorns because that's how they're protected. Okay. So we always have this agreement. I'm very hard. I'm very New Yorker. And I'm like that. And Marco's very like, I'm Italian. I love everything. I'm kind. so he wanted to sort of like plan it and invite like a thousand people and i literally wanted to do it right then and there because i'm like we're working on location what were you we'll send the invites to a lot of people because it's so last minute many won't be able to come and that's okay and we'll have a dinner and a party afterwards but i wanted just i i am i have a lot of sensory um, modulatory, um, particularities.

23:01I'm very dysregulated often and I get very overwhelmed in big places, especially if I'm the center of attention and I have to entertain and for like a long extended amount of time. And I didn't really know these things about me until I finally just became a mom and I having to deal with regulating my children all the time. I realized that, and I get really emotional about this, I was dysregulated for, I'm dysregulated for a good chunk of the day. And I think that art is a way of me regulating myself. So my husband didn't know, but he's just so accommodating. So I, I, I, it was just like, I don't want a lot of people.

23:43I don't want this. And I don't. And he's like, well, what do you want? He's, he's the first person in my life that when I met him, he started always asking me, he's like, okay, we just spent 30 minutes. You telling me what you don't want, what you don't like, what do you want? And that's kind of like the never ending story theme, right? It's like, start wishing. What do you, I wish, you know? And it's like, I just want the people that make me feel safe to, when I look from the altar at them, I just want people that make me feel safe. It's like, well, then let's do that list. Who are those people?

24:15And it was just, you know, like 50 people. And out of those 50, 35 of them were able to last minute change everything and be there. Because I'm like, when I look back, I want to look into their eyes and I want to feel their light back to me. I want to feel their blessings. I don't want to feel somebody kind of going, okay. You know, because you just, and that's pressure. I don't want to be pressured into inviting people. I want a desire. I want to feel pleasure and love and security. and it was you know and there were a couple of strays there that we picked up like last minute but they were also good good folks you know and and we did it at the babington house which is a wonderful place and it was very private owned by a friend of ours my husband's best friend who basically last minute said well just do it here and we call and they were so accommodating and i did it on on a sunday because they didn't have availability on a saturday and i was shooting guardians of the galaxy here and i was working on monday so when we found out last minute that i couldn't do it on a saturday and it had to be on that monday i was like oh god i don't want to come straight from work and i've never done this before and i've never done it after i went up to the ad and i said um is it okay if i if i ask for monday off and they're like well you never do that in a production.

25:40Why? And I said, well, the thing is, I said, you're a person. I'm getting married on Sunday. And I remember, I remember his face. He was such a wonderful AD. He passed away, but a really wonderful man. And he was kind of like, okay, all right. And I remember he had like an internal conversation with himself of all the moving pieces that he had to do. And then he finally told himself in front of me, it must be done. It must be done. Don't worry, darling. I got, I got you. And I was just like crying. I'm like, thank you so much. And then the director came like are you kidding me of course you're getting married oh my god and they were all invited to the wedding so when was the wedding it was um in 2013 yeah so you've been married a long time an old married woman yeah very happy and you have three and i met him just six months before by the way how did you meet um i mean on a plane on a plane at 6 30 in the morning a long haul one or a short um it was from la to new york long enough to get to know each other and fall in love Were you sitting next to each other?

26:39Kind of, within a couple of aisles from each other. Well, who made the first move? Oh, he did. He's so Italian. Italians are so confident. They're like, caramina, amore, amore. It's all that thing. I'm flirting. And I'm from New York. I'm like, stop. Just use your voice. Use your manly voice. Because my husband's really gentle. And he's like, ciao, amore. I'm like, talk, like grounded. And he's always like, don't be unkind to me. Okay, I'll speak to you like this. So I was always very hard, but maybe that's what he liked about me. I don't know. I just, hold on. I just need to know. So he, he made the first move.

27:14Did he ask to swap seats? How did he wait for you to go to the loo? No. I don't know how he chats you up. Look, she's so gorgeous. His eyes. No, I get that. I was traveling with my makeup artist who's from Argentina. And the reason why I say this doesn't matter where she's from, but I love the fact that she's from Argentina because she speaks like, no argentinos speak very much like these and um she calls me because we were traveling together for a work thing and she had arrived at the airport before i did and says boluda calls me how far are you and i'm like i'm like 10 minutes away oh my god come quick there's an adonis on the parallel cue to us.

28:02Come quick before he leaves. So then I'm like, oh, excuse me, sir. Can you please get there? And as I'm walking towards her, she does this thing.

28:16And then goes like this. So then my eyes look at her and go exactly where she's staring at. And he's right there parallel to her on the neighboring cue. and something told me like I just heard this voice I was like what the fuck was that you love him like I just heard like my voice within me that said you love him and I was like when I look at him like obviously the most gorgeous because Italians can be really easy on the eye yeah you know it's just so fucking Mediterranean and just I don't know with that nose and those i don't know and those big hands oh and big feet oh anyway so then he looks at me but he gives me that little player look like like that little boy look and that just irritated the fuck out of me because i couldn't i can already tell that he knows he's beautiful yes you know what i mean i like when somebody doesn't know that they're beautiful and they're clumsily beautiful beautiful um but he just knows it and he owns it and he's been banking on that shit since he was 14 you can totally tell okay so I made this whole history about him yeah and then at the at the newspaper stand once we're past the security he comes up to me he says we met we always cross paths what and I'm like no he goes with so and so and so and we realized that we do have friends in common and I did meet him and I remember that I I told myself forget you ever laid eyes on this I met him at a yacht party in Cannes three years before I love this and he was sitting with Corinne Rotfield who back then was the editor-in-chief of Vogue magazine Friends and she was one of the people on the list that I was told you have to go meet her and goes it's so nice to meet you I hope you like me and she was talking with someone that appeared to be this gorgeous tall blonde thing turns out that it's a man and it was my husband with long hair, my husband has long hair and and she's like nice to meet you zoe this is marco and i said nice to meet you and he he did this he goes and he does this little italian little high-pitched thing that the italians do which bit of it some little boys do some some men do you know which bit of it is he's from the north he's from legarda so he's very gentle and very soft-spoken just just like his his mom and his dad is from milan chaua tutti belli brutti like that's his that's it you know so the combination of that made marco perego and um and i remember thinking oh so beautiful probably the most gorgeous thing i'll ever lay eyes on what a player so i made this whole thing i'm like that pirate's there with my pirate and then he reminded me no we met a couple of years ago and um so he gives vera my makeup artist he gives her his information because i wasn't going to take it on the flight we did talk and I realized like just reluctantly liking him I just like I'm like god he's just so easy on the eye I'm so gentle I'm like it's all fake it's all fake I'm such a New Yorker I'm really I have a very hard shell had and New York dating is quite tough as well I mean I don't know I think it's like easier well but you know what I'm 46 I've heard from so many younger people that dating today is just difficult.

31:34We're living in such an era where social media gives you the permission to be so different from yourself. So some, so most of the times people sort of weaponize the fact that they can hide behind these devices to just spew so much hatred and an intolerance and inflexibility. And sometimes you reinvent yourselves and you can be quite superficial in the way that you're approaching love or dating right so back in the day we relied on face yeah presence right and and what you saw in that very moment was what was going to get you past you know first base I liked him and everything about him but I just felt like maybe he wasn't going to be this nice um and then I called him maybe three weeks after that are you that flight you didn't did you no text i emailed him and i said i heard i know that you have a studio because you told me that you have an art studio what does he do he's a multi-disciplinary artist so back then marco was a sculptor and a painter and a conceptual artist he's so attractive you know what but he's not perfect okay there's so many things i'm like marco enough you know like where we just we're kind of ying to each other's yeng did you do some ceramics together we did we did and he taught me how to make like mushroom risotto and tiramisu and and um you know have you have you put this in uh to a production company and you're making your own rom-com that you can star in i don't i don't know but we always love telling the story of how we met and we also we love even more hearing how others met because that really just inspires you we're actively pursuers of of friends that are sort of and harmoniously together, we like to surround ourselves with harmonious people together because it feeds you.

33:26It really feeds you. And then you keep each other encouraged to keep going because love isn't easy. Love is like, you know, we get up and we eat leaner and we go exercise. We work so hard on our image and how we want to feel healthy, but we become really cavalier with love. Love takes, love is a muscle man you gotta you gotta always like it's in the letters it's in the effort that you you do for that partner if you know their love language it's in the way you know that something makes them so happy even though you hate doing it so you'll do it you'll budge you know and vice versa and it's in the way you are honest even when it hurts but you do it with so much kindness which i'm still learning i will forever i will forever be a student of that going here because I fail so miserably.

34:16Wait, what is this? I made a shakshuka. Get on the mic, mum. I love it. Sorry, but green. Okay. I've never had a green shakshuka. Okay. So let's hope. And there's some halloumi that can be with it. I love halloumi so much. Great. And then we've got some gluten-free rolls for you. Thank you so much. If you need that. And that's the agner. Oh, okay. Strained, kind of, you know, yogurt. And then mum's made some gluten-free chocolate chip cookies. You guys are incredible. Well, I've done nothing. Thank you.

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36:01So whilst mum is sorting out the, I think the eggs and the halloumi, thanks mum, appreciate you. Thank you mum. Last supper, we ask everybody there, last supper. you can be going to a desert island where you're not going to have your delicious comforts and favorite food for a very long time so this would be the last supper before you go there an appetizer a main a dessert and a drink of choice what are you going to go you can think about this for a bit or you can just hit me with it I'm a Gemini so I can't just choose one thing I love noodles I'm a sucker for Asian noodles okay I you know I love udon I love um you know yache and i i love i love wonton noodles and everything but if i had to pick just one i would say my great grandmother's food from beginning to end okay where would we stop um we would start with like maybe a little shot of espresso cafecito um because even though i don't drink coffee i would drink hers any minute why was it so good it was just great when you grew up in latin america we We just make our cafecito so like, you know, you can have a cortadito, which is what they call in Cuba.

37:08You just put a little dash of milk, but it's just tiny and it's just an explosion of just energy. But it's okay if you're with your grandparents because you can explode on each other, you know. So I would have a cafecito. How old were you when you started drinking cafecitos? Young. Five, four, five. No, stop. I couldn't be putting my three-year-old having a cafecito. Huh? I'll eat two. because they would give you, your grandparents are drinking it and they get that little teaspoon and they just kind of like give you, start giving it to you. Even though your parents are like, oh, come on. No, mama, don't give her that.

37:42Don't. And then you learn that as long as your parents don't see your grandmother, it'll go from two teaspoons to a whole little shot of cafecito. But maybe we'll end with a cafecito because that always brings forward like so many great conversations with your grandparents. And so we would start maybe with a caramel tea or just like, oh, Coca-Cola, you just have a soda. But back in the day, growing up in Dominican Republic, they had their own soda companies. And there was this brand called Country Club Sodras and the merengue one, which was, I think it was a ginger one. I would start with that.

38:18And then we would have her food, which is just rice and her beans from scratch that she soaked overnight. Kidney beans. Okay. Red kidney beans. and her... There's harissa there. Do you want harissa? It says to serve it with a little... Sure. Harissa, so... Is it spicy? Harissa's slightly spicy. Bring it on. Okay, fine. And then this... I was like a bit worried. You were like, it's like dolloping it on. This looks great, Mum. I'm not like a yogurt savoury fan. I like my yogurt with granola and honey. Got it. This is delish, Mum. Thank you so much. It's kind of more interesting than the... I'm not mad about shakshuka with the tomato.

38:59I love it like that. This is delicious. Well, can I ask you something? It's peas, not peas. It's leeks, right? It's leeks, peas, coriander, spinach, mint, and parsley. Can I get this recipe? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whilst you're here, how long are you in London for? I'm here until tomorrow. I arrived three days ago. Oh, God. Have you eaten well whilst you've been here? I always eat great here. The food here is so delicious. I love an English breakfast. The bangers and whatever you call it. The bangers, yeah. I love that. The eggs and... How do you call it? What is it? Bangers. They're sausages, yeah.

39:39But sausages are different to yours. Very different. I like when things are different. Because you're... I'm a very curious person, and I feel like you get to know a lot about a culture and people through their food. And you feel the energy. When food is done with love, is made with love, you feel that energy and it feeds you, it nourishes you, right? But also you guys have a huge West Indian and Caribbean melting pot here. And that would be like, if I can close my eyes and admit it, it's like I love Chinese food, like from Hong Kong. I like that kind of area of food in China. And I love Caribbean food.

40:17So I'll eat an oxtail and a beef patty from the Jamaicans. I'll have some rice and peas. I'll have arroz con cri from the Cubans. I'll have pernil from the Puerto Ricans. I'll have like my roasted chicken with my rice and beans. I just, I love Caribbean food. How do you, how do you roast your chicken? Okay. So in every Dominican household, right next to the stove, you would need to have like a wood pillar like this. Yeah. And with like a big like hammer. That's part of like, it was carved from like caoba, which is like our very strong wood. Yeah. and that every day you make your sofrito with oregano garlic and salt so you start mashing that until you create like a paste and that's like the base you put it on your oil you do that and then you cook everything when you're making roasted chicken you wash your chicken you dry your chicken you drill holes around your chicken and then you stuff it with that paste you're throughout and then you rub it on top of it and you start cooking that in the oven It's the most delicious.

41:21I'm okay. I'm good with my tea. Do you want some water? I'm okay. Can we go back to your grandma's recipes? It wasn't great grandma. It was grandma, wasn't it? And back to that last supper. So we're starting with, did we get a starter from your grandma? We don't really do starters. Okay, fine. Maybe sometimes. Sometimes they'll make like arepitas, like out of like corn, little corn fritters or something. Or bacalao, which is salted crawfish. They'll do like little fritters of like bacalao or something. And then you can start with that. But usually we just go straight into the main dish. And what would that main dish be?

42:05Rice, red kidney beans. Yes. That roasted chicken that I told you about. The oregano garlic one. A cabbage salad, a shredded cabbage salad. Like a coleslaw? Yeah, but not with the mayonnaise. Okay, so what's in it? Yeah, it's just shredded cabbage with beets. Ooh. And sometimes it may have carrots. But doesn't it all turn it all red? Yes. Yes. And is it raw beet? No, they're cooked. Okay. They're cooked. So cabbage, beets, and onion? Maybe on the side. Okay. Maybe on the side. And, oh, I don't know. And then the marinade is always like lemon-based. It's like a lemon vinaigrette. so you have your vinegar or your lemon your salt and your oil and with the kidney beans are they literally just kidney beans or is she doing any spices with them oh my god it's a ritual like we are masters at making our beans some people bake them some people do this you've got to cook them well it's the only time in my life i got food poisoning and ended up in hospital oh my god because kidney beans have a poison in them that should boil them completely that's why they're pros you have to soak them overnight so that way they release that enzyme and that's why when you wake up the water gets really like slimy yeah you rinse that water out you soak them some more if you're really eating dry good good beans you know and then you cook them in the pressure pot yeah so what so the ritual i mean is that so would there be any seasoning that goes in yes so what is it the base is like your sofrito which is the garlic the oregano the same as the chicken and and the salt and you put that as a base you put a whole onion into the pressure pot celery and and um onion celery and pepper okay either a green or a red pepper oh wow and you you blast that in the pressure pot then you take all these things out you can either mash them and then you create like a broth right like now you now you have this broth and then you add a pumpkin a piece of pumpkin you have to peel it right because that's a starch that's going to be the base it's going to thicken you we don't thicken our bases yeah not in england gabocha we do we do like gabocha or we do what we call we call them aoyamas aoyama is like our caribbean pumpkin and it's very pungent it has a very strong taste it tastes very much like a pumpkin and um but that's is going to thicken because we don't use flour we don't use gluten um a lot of these countries um you know before bread like we were primarily gluten-free like we ate our starches came from like root vegetables provisions what you call that yuca so this pumpkin so then you start cooking it like it's a soup and you're putting your pumpkin in there and you put all the mashed up vegetables that you put with it within the pressure pot because they're super soft and that you let that boil down when the pumpkin gets really cooked you take it out and you mash it with some of the beans not all of the beans because we don't eat very our Mexicans they mash all the beans sometimes no no we like our beans so you take it out you mash it and then you put it back into the broth that will thicken the broth sometimes if you want more flavor you can add a bouillon cube or you can cook your beans and chicken stock if you make chicken stock from which sounds great which I do do you know this sounds amazing it's really interesting when I tried to get bouillon cubes in the States you can only get them in the Mexican section it was weird yeah that was the only place couldn't find them anywhere else no so would you finish with the sweet rice pudding anything no no because that would be more like a dish that would be that would be like a meal something with coconuts or if our fruits if we have any kind of fruits in season we like to caramelize them.

45:55We like to cook them down in like sugar and like vanilla and baking soda. And then you'll just have a little bit with your like your cafecito. So we have these berries that all through Latin America, they're called cerezas. They're kind of like cherries. They're like cherries. Our Caribbean cherries are called cerezas or cereza. Cereza is cherry in Spanish. Yes, it is. yeah yeah yeah and um sorry and you take them but you can cook them you caramelize them you cook them down with sugar why the baking soda i've never done that because the baking soda yeah they use it a lot yeah how what does it do i wonder it releases something i don't know but does it make it more syrupy i don't know it's like it's like when you're baking you know like you use baking soda a lot when you're baking yeah you know so i don't know i i'll find that out for you you can't put too much because then you taste that yeah it's just an invisible little pinch of it it's it open up the flavor i just wonder whether it's just some chemical in it so then would you have that with yogurt or would you just have it on its own so it's kind of like a not a compote but it's just a little or they'll make or or they'll make like if the guavas guayabas are in season they'll make like a jam or like a jelly kind of made of guava and you can eat that with like a cheese that they have that is not like a feta cheese because it's like a ricotta oh it's like a full ricotta but it has a thicker kind of a thicker texture and you just take a slice of that and we call it queso crema or crema san juan and you eat that with like your guava jam yum and your cafecito isn't it great that sounds great but usually we don't have our dessert right after our meal you have like your coffee because we drink coffee like six times a day that's probably why you don't drink it anymore baby you feel i'm done but like around two or whatever you'll have like what you call merienda you call like a little snack and what's the that that's that's the jam with the queso crema and all that stuff i love that that's kind of like our afternoon tea i guess but that's it fine and biscuits or like you have like yeah lovely and then drink of choice so that would be would that be the soda yeah that's that's how we have been americanized and kind of thing where you just you've introduced instant ways of cooking so now you have the bouillon cubes versus like a chicken broth that you made from scratch right so we would have soda but it was really good and in a glass bottle and we always felt like grown-up kids like drinking soda from a glass bottle you know these are gluten-free chocolate yeah are you serious they look great mom they look like brownies yeah they look great girls oh my god girls what the F oh my god Oh my God.

48:39The new orchard just came out. You heard me, right? Girls. Girls. That are delicious. They're so good. Monique, can I take some with me? Yes, please. I'm so happy. These are wicked, Mum. Do you like them? You can do them for Passover because they're doing free. That is very sweet. I want to know who's going to the Oscars with you. Well, is the whole family going? Because I imagine you move like an amoeba. I'm trying. My mom came to the Golden Globes and my sisters did too because of Ariana Grande's mom. Because we had lunch with them at one of those luncheons, award luncheons. And she sat with my sisters and she was like, you guys have to go to the Globes.

49:21And then she goes straight to all of our publicists. Listen, you got to get her tickets. They have to go to the Globes. And then my sisters were able to go to the Globes. I love that. Because we never dared ask. We always think it's too much. But you know what? Why? Why? Why? So this time I sent a list this big. Good. And I'm like, my husband will be my date. Yeah. Because he's cute. Looks good. Yes. And he's just the best thing that's ever happened to me. And then, if you ever cheat on me. You're dead, mate. You know. Yeah. You know how I am. What's that mean? You know how I am. I'm a mother.

50:00I'm a mother. Anyway, he loves when I talk to him like that. Oh, okay. I just told him, I'm like, you know how I am crazy. I think it means cheat on me and you're dead. Yeah. He'll be tickled by this. He'll be like, that's intense. So he's going to be my date. But I requested tickets from my dad and my mom and also from my reps. Like they're the ones that are day in and day out on this every single day for me and so many of me like me. And I just, I want to be able to celebrate it with them too. Yeah. What are you going to eat? after are you gonna do the in and out burger stop no no i do that every day with my kids fine okay stop i think usually to me my favorite thing is just chicken tenders and french fries for your room service because every hotel can master that and it's always good it's so chicken tenders when in doubt if you kind of go on now man chicken tenders they won't they won't they're frozen they deep fry them unless they make them from scratch it's amazing um but i think i i think I want to have noodles.

51:03Noodles. Where I have an obsession with noodles, I love Asian noodles. Don't you go to all the parties afterwards? And specifically, I want to have Chinese Korean noodles. They're the ones in that black bean sauce. I want you to wear a bib. I'll take off the dress. You know what? I'll eat it naked. Okay. It's stunning and I want photographic evidence. I think Demi would eat it naked, yeah. 13 nominations is is 13 a record or is it no no no 14 is a record I believe so oh okay but you're almost there yeah we're right there and a film about women in Spanish an opera a tragedy like everything about it just I adored it is aligned with me you know and I loved it it was a wonderful experience to be a part of it was a wonderful challenge that I took upon myself and I feel proud of myself.

51:59Usually I'm very hard on myself, but I feel proud. And then just the reception of it has been really positive. I thought you were just completely phenomenal. You were, thank you. Yeah, I adored you in it. Thank you so much. And it was just a wonderful part. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much, Zoe. It's been such an honor and pleasure. Thank you. You are heaven on earth. I can't wait to see you naked with noodles. I'll send you a picture of the dress laid on a chair and my legs. Having dinner with Oscar. I love it. I'll send you a picture of my husband. Yeah, okay, for sure.

52:51I'm in love with Zoe Saldana. She's gorgeous. Zoe. Zoe. Zoe Saldana. I love her. She's great. She's so warm. She was a top-notch table man as guests. She's someone you'd want to be your best friend. I really loved her. I loved her stories. I loved how enthusiastic she was about food. I love that she's just taken a Ziploc of the cookies. She wanted the tin. They weren't bad, though, were they? They were fantastic. Yeah, they were dead easy. She's going to need them. She's going to keep on talking about Emilia Perez for another month. Thank you so much to Zoe. you can go and watch Amelia Perez on Netflix now or probably see it in the cinema maybe still.

53:28I don't know. I can't wait to see what she does next. Me neither. She was fantastic in it. She was great. Absolutely wonderful. Well done, mum. That was really delicious. Did you like it? I was slightly worried I had spinach or parsley or coriander in my teeth. I've got a cumin seed there. Oh. Oh, it's just come out. Oh. Great. We'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening.

54:13We'll be right back.

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