S8 EP7: Olivia Wilde on the pitfalls of long-term love, her unusual family name, and the 'garbage disposal' of tabloid media

30:33Which is very Wildean. By the way, it was in preparing for this that I learned that you took your name from Oscar Wilde. I did. I did. Which is in no way to suggest that I am comparing myself or whatever meant to suggest that I was in any way as brilliant as Oscar Wilde. It was very much inspired by his work because I, as a young, young person, really fell in love with Oscar Wilde. I loved performing. When I was a teenager, I think the importance of being earnest really became the one. I remember the moment of being on stage doing that play, playing Gwendolyn, if anyone's read it. And I just was so thrilled by it.

31:20So, yeah, for me, it was a very personal thing. It was about remembering that feeling. How old were you when you changed your name? I was 18. And I never expected that it would be, you know, it's not like at 18 I thought that I would be where I am now. I wanted to be an actress. I did not think, and then I will become like a public figure or anything like that. I just wanted to act. I wanted to act on stage. And so I thought, oh, this name will remind me of the feeling that feels very authentic to why I'm actually doing this. It's funny because then when I did become an actress and I was on a lot of different TV shows and got kind of cast in the public eye more as like a, I mean, ingenues always do, but like an object of desire.

32:11Then the name became, of course, used as an adjective. And it was always like every headline was like, born to be wild. You know, wet and wild. Oh, I hope that one was never used. Probably was. But I remember thinking like, I'm such a nerd. It never occurred to me wild used as like wild. I felt like wild, such as Oscar, not wild in that way. But it was also because he's Irish and I'm Irish and I wanted that connection and I thought it was romantic. I had the pleasure of revisiting The Happy Prince and other stories as a dad reading to my youngest. That story and also the one called The Selfish Giant are actually – because I don't cry very much and it was kind of weird.

33:03I was reading to my son and I had to stop reading because I was about to start crying. Why not cry? Let him see you cry Yeah, it was, I think it would have He might have found it a bit weird You know what I mean? Like, I'm trying to wind him down Cry me to sleep, daddy Usually that thing where you have to stop for a second Yeah Let's just breathe for a second Yeah I recommend those stories to any listeners or viewers He's a mischievous writer who almost enjoyed playing with emotion and kind of being excessively sentimental as a very dark joke sometimes? Yeah, it's a lot like Roald Dahl. There was such a cynicism.

33:51I mean, I think Oscar Wilde also as a satirist, you know, it's not full like Jonathan Swift, like we should eat the babies, but it is, that's, by the way, that's a real thing. That's from an essay. That's something I should contextualize. Modest proposal. That has an Irish connection. Exactly. But the idea of we can use storytelling as a way to make observations about humans trying to coexist is what Wilde was doing. It can be misunderstood to be way more shallow than it is, but actually very emotional. And I think that quote that we put at the beginning of the film sounds really cynical, but I hope that by the end of the film you revisit the quote in your mind and you think, oh, actually, I understand that it's a bit more sentimental.

34:49It's a little more romantic, I think. The idea is one should always be in love. That is the reason one should never marry, is actually one should always be in love, and that marriage can often seem to put an end to that kind of act of loving, the engagement of loving, which is an active process that has a lot to do with curiosity and evolution and allowing for someone else's evolution. and I think that marriage can feel like something more final, something that puts a, engraves something in stone in a contract that then you are beholden to and it's like, wait, when you were 24, this was your personality and this is who you were.

35:33So I'm interested in that. It's a big part of the film, the idea of like, are you being authentic in your life as you are now? Does your partner understand who you are now? Have you shared that? And are you forgiving of how they've changed as well? So that was the intention of the quote. Yeah, it's making me think of the phrase happily ever after, which is what's said at the point in the fairy story where the prince and the maiden have got married. But actually, what happens for the next 50 years, you know, when they are married? And just to go back, just on Oscar Wilde, because there's also real truth there.

36:14And I think for those of us in mature relationships, I've been with my wife for 23 years. Wow. And I feel like we've had several different relationships. Do you? In the course of that, you know, with each other. Do you know what I mean? Yes, I do. I do. I'm fascinated by that. And so in watching the invite, and I should say, so we've got Seth Rogen and your good self as one of the couples. Yeah. You both play excellently. Thank you. Edward Norton and Penelope Cruz are the other couple. It's a four-hander, ladies and gentlemen. Those are the only people. That's it. Yeah, there's no escape from us.

36:48And 98 % of it takes place within the apartment. Yes, everything but the opening credits. The opening bit isn't. And it goes on this roller coaster of what's going on in these relationships. Yeah, and it's based on a Spanish film. Originally a play called, in Spain it was called Sentimental. here it was the people upstairs, written and directed by a guy called Seske. He made the film from his own play. Then that film was adapted into several different languages in several different countries. And I find this really fascinating. Everywhere from, I believe there's a French version, an Italian version, I believe a German one, a South Korean one.

37:31And then our version is an English language offering as an adaptation. But each of these films are very different. I haven't seen all of them. But I love the opportunity to adapt something that clearly is tapping into something interesting enough to be felt universally or at least in these several different cultures and to adapt it into our version of it. I like that challenge. I think it's why we love doing you know, Macbeth, because everyone can do their own version of it. Hamlet, probably done more than anything else. It's not to suggest that the invite is Hamlet, but it is something that I think is an interesting challenge.

38:14Can you take a story that's been told before, and can you put it through a different prism, and can you allow for these actors to personalize it and specify in a way that feels original. I think that's an interesting challenge. And when Will McCormick and Rashida Jones wrote this English language adaptation, and I read it, and I laughed so much. And I thought, wait a minute, this is an opportunity to tell a story and make a film in a way that I had fantasized about for a long time, which is to really simplify the process. It takes place in one location, which allows for shooting sequentially so we shot the film in page order which is really fun and allows how unusual is that very because as a lay person i think a lot of people assume oh they filmed it in the order that you yeah saw it but almost never that's not economical no it's logistically really i won't say impossible because i'm sure people have figured it out it's usually very very very difficult for location reasons and for schedules we not only got to shoot it in order which allows you to feel like you're doing a play.

39:27It also allows you to continue workshopping the material as you go. So you learn from where your character has been and you can make decisions based on that. You know your character much more thoroughly by the end and can perform the end in a way that is much more authentic to who the audience has been spending time with. We also had two weeks of rehearsal, which I also have never experienced. It's very rare. And I had dreamed of having that because it's crazy that most films, the performances you're seeing have not been rehearsed because there is just no time built in for it. And you think how ridiculous to put something out there that hasn't been marinated and the actors are expected to kind of immediately plug into a tonal rhythm with each other.

40:18And it makes it much more difficult than it has to be. I think it robs the experience of so much value, unless it's your intention to try that kind of like complete unprepared spontaneity, which is its own cool thing. But we had two weeks of sitting with our screenwriters and our cast around a table, pulling the script apart and forcing ourselves to justify every decision and to really investigate the conversation we wanted the film to have, which is about relationships and whether they can survive over a long time and why they do or don't. and what is the definition of a happy couple versus an unhappy couple and how much sex is normal, how many secrets are people allowed to keep from each other, all these questions that I think we all found interesting.

41:04What did you conclude about how much sex is normal? I think my real conclusion is that no sex is not normal and that is something that I think a lot of people have mis... Sounds very judgmental to say misunderstood. Say it. Just say it. I think that... I heard you say that. Was it on the Call Her Daddy podcast? Maybe. On one of them you said... I've been talking too much. It's probably... I have no idea. You said something like, you feel like actually if there's no sex in the relationship... It's a bad sign. It's not a good sign. It's not a good sign. And I think that... It's a sign that it might be a friendship.

41:41Yeah, it's a roommate. I really think that... They call it the dead bedroom. Yeah, bed death. What about... Have you heard of bedroom divorce? No, what's that? It's when you sleep in separate bedrooms. I don't know. I think that's kind of sexy. I'm intrigued by that. You could invite her over in a way that allows for maybe there's a little bit of mystery in there. I think that's interesting. Isn't that interesting? It's that whole thing like how can I – you can only chase something that's moving away. How can I miss you if you'll never leave? Exactly. Exactly. I mean, this is very Esther Perel who was a consultant on the film.

42:19Who wrote Mating in Captivity. Yes. The manual to keeping the physical side alive in a long-term relationship. Yes. I haven't actually read it. Oh, I recommend it. She's got a podcast as well. Yes. Called Where Shall We Begin? Where Shall We Begin? Where she deals, she talks to couples coming back from infidelity or… All sorts of things. And what's interesting about her podcast is you get to kind of listen in on a couple therapy session and then hear her asides, hear her insights, and you kind of feel like you're in her head. There's a very good recent episode about a man in love with his AI. It's fascinating.

42:58It's happening more and more. It's happening more and more, and I understand. Even I'm developing feelings for my Spotify, not Spotify, for my Duolingo. Nice Spotify plug, though. That was good. Contractually obligated. Even I'm developing feelings for my Duolingo AI. Oh, yes. And you get upset when the Duolingo is disappointed in you. The little owl looks so sad. Yeah, they guilt trip you. The owl's dying because you haven't practiced your French. Yesterday, it went, please, with like 11 E's. And I was like, oh, this is bad. This is desperate. But I think that what's interesting about having Esther as our consultant is that she wasn't on set with us, but it meant that we could ask her questions about her research as it pertained to these conversations that are happening in many relationships and how we could have the most authentic version of it in the film.

43:57But I really learned a lot about how little sex a lot of people are having and how they assume that's normal. Yeah, and particularly after children. Wow. It makes me sad to think about how people have misunderstood intimacy to be about merging identities and yet not really maintaining a curiosity about this person that allows for the kind of necessary separation that leads to eroticism. And that's very Esther. I'm badly paraphrasing a lot of her ideas, but I think it was a large part of the research for the film was, you know, why, at least in, I would say, in American culture, why do we think, oh, we're so intimate.

44:52We know everything. I know everything about him. He knows everything about me. That means we're really close. And it's like, are you close? Are you close? Or do you feel an entitlement to this person's private life because that makes you feel somehow safe? And does that work for you in one way but inherently remove the necessary erotic charge that keeps you interested in this person? And is that one reason why so many marriages fail? Maybe. In our movie, there's a lot of shame in this couple about their lack of sex. They never talk about it. They instead just kind of bicker and subtly resent each other.

45:45They're sort of standing on a vibrating volcano of resentment. but they just allow it to come out in little barbs. They haven't had sex for a year. But I think maybe this says more about me. Like I could imagine a relationship in which you bicker and are passive-aggressive but actually love each other and it kind of works more or less. Well, I think that... As long as it's not belittling and... Well, that's the thing. If it veers into contempt, I think you're in a bad place. Contempt is supposed to be the toxic. That's, I think, what's hard to come back from. Apparently eye rolling is a big thing.

46:21Oh, God, it's my pet peeve. That is the worst. If you do that, it's like... Because it's very disrespectful. And I think when you lose respect... Because it's saying... What does an eye roll say? It's dismissal. It's... It's like, that's not worthy of a response. Yeah, it's not worthy of a response. And there's no value to what you've just said. And I won't even engage in it. Because I do think the opposite of love isn't hate. I think it's indifference. I think it's just like, I don't even I don't have time for your feelings

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48:42do you think this is a tee up do you think women and men have different uh attitudes to sexuality connection and maybe even different sex drives Sure. I think in my non-professional opinion that the language of intimacy can be very different in men and women. I think women are more verbal, and so we can communicate our needs in a way that sometimes it can feel very frustrating that men don't. But I do think that's partly the way men are biologically designed maybe, but really the way they're raised. I think there is an encouragement of verbal communication in young women that we seem to come to more easily.

49:36And I mention it because I'm interested in how that relates to physical intimacy as a kind of communication. That I think that there is something to nonverbal communication as an essential part of being in relationship. It's not only about expressing verbally what you need and how you feel about someone else. Sometimes there is a need to do that without words. And I think sex is a part of that. It's a part of communicating. And so I think that there's this really unfair thing, this assumption that women don't want as much sex as men. And in many marriages, it becomes a battle of who is engaging, who is instigating, right?

50:16And that's something that comes up in the film. There is a conversation that Seth and my characters have that I'm really, I'm proud of because it feels very authentic to me where we battle over whose fault it is that we're not having sex. And he says this line, he says, you're supposed to want me. And it's very sad. And I think that people are familiar with that feeling. You're supposed to want me. You married me. And that makes me feel entitled to you being attracted to me. I mean, whoa, does that veer into the manosphere incel conversation. But in terms of like in a lot of relationships, this sense of I shouldn't have to earn this.

51:04I just want to be loved, which is connected to how we feel about our parents. You should, you are entitled to the love of your parent. I do believe that. I think that as children, children don't need to earn affection from their parents. It should be completely unconditional. And I think if we haven't been given that, which many people haven't, there is a frustrated sense of like, you should love me. Just hold me and want me and no matter what I do. But that is a familial thing. It is not something that should exist between couples. In a relationship, there's times where one person wants to have sex in order to feel connected.

51:49And then the other person might only want to have sex because they feel connected. Exactly. That was said so much more succinctly and perfectly. My wife sometimes says, like, foreplay starts 12 hours before. Correct. I do think that there is something kind of tantric about a long lead up to sex that I think that there is a thing that we do when we're dating where we say, let's meet next week. Should we have dinner next Thursday? And it's like, yeah, sure. And what we're really saying is like, do you want to have sex next Thursday? So the next six days are going to be a lead up and I get to enjoy a slow build of anticipation.

52:39When we're married or in long-term relationships, It feels pretty corny to say, like, shall we have a date next Thursday? It feels like this is sad. We shouldn't have to do that. But actually, I think there's something really tantalizing about a bit of a long runway and saying, and everything up until then will be a part of this anticipation and seduction. So I get that. I think that people feel that that is energy that shouldn't be required. that it feels like, oh, God, I've already given you my hopes and dreams. I've given you my life. I'm not going to also make dates with you. I mean, that's certainly the couple in the movie.

53:19They feel this resentment that they have not spoken about that is really surrounding their dreams that they've given up. They're both frustrated artists. He gave up a music career. She gave up a career as a visual artist. And they've never talked about how they blame each other for this sense of complete dissatisfaction in their own creative lives. And so the sense of like, and you want me to take you on a date, it becomes like, I'm sorry, I've already done all this and now this, and now that's too much for me, I resent you. But if we've never actually talked about the first part, it feels very unfair.

53:56And the movie is trying to suggest that through the introduction of this other couple, which ostensibly is the sexy, happy couple. Sexy upstairs neighbors who've been having very loud sexual activity. Yes. Kind of rubbing it in our faces. Yeah, and one of them is kind of a sex therapist, the Penelope Cruz character. She is. And the other guy's a firefighter. Yeah. Edward Norton. He's so good, isn't he? He is so good. Let me just explain how good he is. Because I think that being able to watch these actors up close was really exciting for me. because I've admired them for a long time and it was like getting to be right up against Yo-Yo Ma as he's playing the cello and really getting to look at what he's doing.

54:42And I found myself just in awe of the way that they prepare these characters with so much depth and so many layers. And it's not just about I've shown up and I've learned the lines and I'm here to perform them. It's about an enthusiastic authorship of the character that builds in so much texture. and for Edward he created a character that had so much dimension that wasn't necessarily there when we all began the workshopping process of the script. It became his internal process that I was very excited to kind of bring into the material. So I'll give an example. We've talked about it a little bit but I'm really excited by it that there is a story he tells in the third act of the film.

55:29He's called Hawk. Yes. And he's kind of a, in other hands, like it might have been a kind of cartoon character. Completely. He's so self-actualized. He's on the edge of being almost like a Woody Allen movie character where he's like, I've forgotten my mantra kind of a thing. Do you know what I mean? Greatest line of all time. Overly therapized, sort of ludicrous California self-help avatar. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And yet what we learn is that there is a real source for that choice that this character has made in his life. And what that, I don't want to give it away, but basically that there is a reason he changed his name to Hawk.

56:10And it's actually based in a very painful experience that he tells us about. And when we were making the film, Edward said, I have a reason. well his name was originally I think Lance and then Shane at some point because it felt like kind of a funny name for a sex-obsessed fireman I guess and then once we started really working the material he said I think he should have changed his name which is a very funny thing you know people come up with burning man names and that kind of thing he should have changed his name to Hawk and then he said I have a reason for why Hawk and I'll just keep that. And I said, well, I think it would be great to hear that at some point.

56:58And he said, well, I have this story. And I said, okay, don't tell me the story, but at this point in the story, in the script, we'll just write in Hawk's story. Hawk tells a story. And on the day of filming, we'll set the cameras up on Seth's character and my character, and then I want you to tell the story for the first time so we hear it for the first time on film. And this was something Edward and I got really excited about because you very rarely get to have this opportunity when making a film. And I was thrilled by it because, wow, as an actor, the gift of actually getting to have an authentic, spontaneous response to something is really exciting.

57:41So I was excited by that. But as a director, I was so curious, what will this be? And I think there are very few other people I would trust with something like that because we were, you know, rolling actual film and film is expensive. But I can't stress how moved I was by the story he tells and also moved by the generosity of Edward as an actor to create something like this, which we really needed as a kind of emotional, a ramp between two different tones in the film, and I would argue that the film does take a turn and he allowed for that through this story. and then Seth Rogen because he is such a fucking genius his response to it is a perfect leveler for tone and it was totally spontaneous so my experience of directing this movie was just getting to be continuously surprised by these people who were bringing so many great ideas Penelope Cruz came up with the whole Sade sequence she's dancing with Seth and Sade's playing shot of his playing which oh god it's so funny it's so funny and kind of romantic as well very romantic and she's also singing to him which is and he's singing with her and i'm there's so much there's so much that they brought to it it felt it was the most collaborative experience it was the most joyful experience we had these great screenwriters who were so generous and their openness to the evolution of this piece of material that they cared deeply about and And it kept changing because we kept getting so excited.

59:16And I think when you're making a film, it can become this process that then is high stress and logistically difficult and becomes about kind of checking boxes. Did we get it done? And you can overly kind of sanitize it. And this didn't feel that way. It felt very fertile in terms of creative ideas. So many of the things. There's a lot of improvisation. And I can't overstate how fortunate I feel for the whole thing. And I know this sounds like bullshit, but even if the film had never been picked up by a distributor at Sundance, which was not a given, we went to the festival with no distribution.

59:57even if we weren't now able to be in theaters which is incredible and very rare for a comedy these days I would feel as proud of it I would feel as happy I had this experience because I think personally it created a really deep opportunity for catharsis and kind of a restoration of my faith in this business and all of it I want to move on but just before we do I'll say also it feels very of the moment I think what I got from it was have high expectations for your relationship but don't expect them to be just to happen right work on them and also separation is not something to overly stigmatize in fact I was talking to a friend and he said you know I'm a big fan of divorce which sounds quite dark but actually in some contexts is completely appropriate and we're living in a time when are certainly in the States, they want to get rid of no-fault divorce.

1:00:58There's significant forces on the right of the Republican Party who want to turn back the clock to a kind of manosphere era in which people are constrained to remain in relationships that either aren't fulfilling or might even be abusive. Like the arrival of no-fault marriage laws was a massive achievement. And, you know, it really, the government benefits from marriage. That's why they incentivize it through tax incentives in other ways. I think that it's becoming less popular. People are getting married less. People are having kids less. This threatens the establishment. I think it's healthy.

1:01:37That sounds unromantic. I'm obviously not a married person, and you are. But I believe that it is a good thing for people to get married for the right reasons and to get unmarried if they so choose. Is your energy all right? Yeah, I feel good. I would love to talk to you a bit about your upbringing, your family. You come from a very literary family. And in fact, your given name at birth, your surname is Coburn. Correct. Spelt? C-O-C-K-B-U-R-N. Spelt Cockburn. Try growing up with that one. I mean, did people call you Theroux? It's not as devastating. No, but Theroux doesn't sound like you've got a genital injury.

1:02:22You know what I mean? I know exactly what you mean. You must have got a lot of shit for that. Oh, yeah. It's an Irish name, is it? I think a Scottish name originally. It's Scottish. And there's Coburn's Port, which is a port wine. But I absolutely was thrashed for it emotionally by kids in school. And, you know, I understood it and I still do. There was never a part of me that felt like, how could you get that wrong? I was never horrified. Obviously. You would see it written down. Yeah. You'd have to know in order to call it. I too would get it wrong. Do you remember the advert? No, because you didn't grow up in the UK.

1:02:57No, but my dad has shown me this. Really? Yeah. And they meet a Russian guy in the Navy. Yeah, it's like those who call it Cockburn's port. I can't remember the punchline. That's terrible. He goes, so in Russia, I come from Moskow. Oh. That's the joke. Like if Cockburn is pronounced Coburn, then Moscow must be Moscow. We used to say cockroaches or co-roaches. We used to joke around a lot about it. Obviously, my family has an amazing sense of humor. We were raised to laugh. It is a formative thing to grow up with a name that teaches you to laugh at yourself young and to kind of be able to understand that, you know, to make the joke before anyone else in a way was my way of kind of surviving it as a kid.

1:03:51I felt bad for my brother because I think it's harder to be. Maybe, no, maybe it's harder for a, what's harder? For a woman, I think. I think it would be. Maybe, I don't know. It's hard, it's hard. I think hard for both. I really, you know, it's funny because I have such deep respect for my family. I revere my dad and his family. And my mom, you know, proudly took his name. Your dad is Andrew Coburn. Correct. And then there's Alexander Coburn. Your dad was a writer. Alexander Coburn is a writer. Patrick Coburn is a writer. Your mom is Leslie Coburn. Yeah, and my grandparents were both writers.

1:04:33My uncles, as you said, cousins. And many of them writing on serious international relations subjects. Yes. Like Soviet studies or the Middle East. Correct, yeah, yeah. American politics and culture. Yeah, and my dad still is. He writes for Harper's and he's the most interesting person I've ever known. and it's because he's the most interested person. He's so genuinely curious about people and about things and he's so brilliant. And you had literary people stopping by, as I understand it, like Christopher Hitchens. Yes, I loved Hitchens very much. He was a very, very dear friend of my parents and he was a part of this kind of community of people who raised us.

1:05:29these incredible, and right by raised, I mean that they were just present, and he did babysit for me, which has become kind of a funny thing that's mentioned, and I think he wrote about it. He wrote a profile for me. I think I did, I can't remember what fashion magazine it was. It might have been Elle, but it was so funny to have Hitchens writing this profile of me, and he described me as headstrong, which was the most generous way to describe me as a child, but he was very much a part of this community of people around when I was a kid. It was like a salon, salon, as you might say. I really, I feel grateful for that because it just exposed us to lots of different types of conversations.

1:06:09And they always took us seriously when we were kids. Like they asked what we were thinking about and reading. Was there a time when you thought you might be a writer? It's funny, I never considered it as a professional path. I think probably because I was too intimidated, the idea of following in those footsteps. But I have immense respect for journalists and documentarians such as yourself. And I grew up with my mother producing 60 Minutes and pieces for Frontline, ABC News, and working in really dangerous places, doing interesting things. But, you know, the basement of our house in D.C. was her editing room.

1:06:52So I used to be kind of plopped on the carpet while she was editing these pieces about, you know, the famine in Somalia or, you know, different conflicts. And I got a front row seat to watching a woman in a male-dominated field thriving in a way that was very inspiring. I know the door's open, which I think means we're coasting. We're coming into land, ladies and gentlemen. I wanted to squeeze in two quick ones because it's too tantalizing not to. One was, my notes told me that you had a brush with competitive eating. No. And ate 22 pancakes in 30 seconds. That's sort of the last question I expected you to ask.

1:07:34Is that true? 22 seconds? No, minutes. 22 pancakes. It said 30 minutes. 30 minutes. Minutes. Seconds would be really gross. That would be insane. 22 pancakes in 30 minutes. Yeah, I was... Is that true? It is true. It is true. It's the only award I've ever won and I'm proud of it. But how big were the pancakes? Pretty big. I came up with a system though. Go on. To stack them five at a time and you... This also sounds disgusting but it works. And to eat them like a burger. And that was how I won. And the reason I did it is because I was in Australia. was 15 and this wasn't like last week uh this was 15 and i and i was in a pub i was part of like a student group that was traveling through australia and we saw that there was this competition and i said as a as a woman ever entered or won and they said no so then i had to do it it was part of a period of my life when i i think that that kind of thing felt like i had a duty to to to to do you know to do the thing i never turned down a dare really no that was something i made i think in a part of my personality for a long time now i god i can barely be dared to go out past like 10.

1:08:53did you not feel ill afterwards oh yeah i was extremely sick keep it down no no but competitive eating i think famously that's never the requirement i think I think they often don't keep it down. Certainly back in the day, many of the great competitive eaters were skinny Japanese guys. There was a guy who did the hot dogs. Yes, famously, the Nathan's hot dog one in Coney Island. And every year the guy would turn up and he was a tiny Japanese guy. And then there'd be huge Americans who turn up and get completely rolled over by this skinny Japanese guy. Don't judge a competitive eater by their size.

1:09:30By their size, by their appearance. Jennifer Lawrence once vomited while watching your 2017 Broadway debut playing Julia in a production of Orwell's 1984. Not based on my performance, though. What was that all about? She really helped us sell tickets with that vomiting because basically we did this production of 1984. and it was directed by Rob Icke and Duncan Macmillan, two British theatre directors and really brilliant people. The production was extremely intense and involved a lot of flashing lights and sound design that was very intense. It was meant to evoke the kind of torture chamber that exists within that book and play.

1:10:21When Winston Smith's taken off to be reprogrammed. Room 101. Because he's showing dissident sight. Yeah, that's right. It's room 101, isn't it? Yeah. He's got a fear of rats. Oh, God, it's so scary. And the production was really scary. We would have around 12 people either having seizures or fainting or getting sick. Getting sick was rare. That was really Jen who was an outlier. I think that she was actually sick for another – I think she had food poisoning. But it was great for our publicity because when she threw up during the play, that was publicized and it made people think, oh, this must be intense.

1:11:01This is in the theater. Sounds cool. If you dare. And we sold out. So thanks, Jen. It was a really wild experience, that play, because Orwell is co-opted by both sides of the political spectrum. That text in particular. And so we had this very weird range of fans. Some, you know, like really right wing Breitbart journalists, if you call them that, were big fans of the play. and I guess it makes sense because they each see it as a confirmation of their bias. But I count myself, I suppose, as part of that. On the left, I see that text as a warning, a warning we haven't taken because we're living in a strange time.

1:11:51We're in a self-administered surveillance state in which we're surveilling ourselves with our handheld devices, surrendering massive amounts of data to sinister tech platforms. And we are now doing the job of surveillance by agreeing to not only film ourselves but each other. I remember in the book and the play, the thing that became scary was sleeping because if you spoke in your sleep, they would hear you. And I think about that a lot now with all the devices that are obviously, you know, we've agreed by checking boxes and contracts none of us read to have them listen to us. Yeah, famously a Samsung smartphone was harvesting your data.

1:12:32And they could do it because, well, they're only accessing it constitutionally if they listen to it. So we're just scooping it up. But don't worry, we won't listen to it yet. Yeah, unless we need to. Unless we find out we think we should. But at what point will we be afraid to sleep because we might say things that get us thrown in prison? Anyway, the invite's a comedy. Go see it. and a very funny one at that. Thank you for joining, Olivia. This is a real dream come true for me. I have been a fan of yours for so long. I think you are an essential part of the discourse, and I learn a lot from you, and I hope you do it forever.

1:13:18Thank you. I'm glad Millie heard that. She'll definitely be taking that out of the final edit.

1:13:37and welcome back big thank you to olivia for coming by um perhaps i should slide into more people's dms millie leave the booking to me i'll take care of it from here it's tricky because it feels like you're presuming on um what is it well it's because i'm exposed and i'm the one going like hey you want to come on it's a direct invite there's there's no buffer if if millie or the team reach out to the star or the guests team and and they're like fuck no and then that could become back it's like it's not quite right now you know but they love the podcast it can all be softened there's a few stars i've dm'd and they haven't said fuck no but they've said um oh big fan but let's hook it up when you're coming through someplace i'm never coming through right or they don't reply that's quite a common one it's kind of a lame thing like will you go on my podcast you know what I mean it feels a bit like really like you are gonna be that guy come on my podcast I've spoken before how like having a podcast isn't a real job right it's like a thing that everyone does and that's like a cliche of people in Brooklyn supposedly the most romantic thing a man can say to a woman if he's of a certain age in a certain kind of I don't know media class or something to say like, I don't have a podcast.

1:15:08It's a green flag. It's a green flag if you don't have a podcast. Literary names, Millie's written, these talking points, were you in a rush? Harper Beckham is named after Harper Lee. And I've written, this is what is interesting, Lionel Messi is named for Lionel Richie. You're saying, is that literary? And I'm saying, have you read the lyrics to Hello? It's like a poem. Well, there's a World Cup connection, so that's not completely random. Yeah, Lionel Messi, every time you see him playing on the pitch, some little part of you should be thinking, she's once, twice, three times a lady. Listen, this is the important thing I want to share with you.

1:16:00I messed up the punchline to the Coburn's port advert. And even in the room at the time, I knew there was another bit, which lands the gag. There's upper crust British guys, and they're taken onto the Russian sub, and they explain about Coburn. He says, Cockburn. And they go, no, no, it's not Cockburn, it's Coburn. Then this is a clow. He's pointing at a clock. He says, no, that's a clock. this is a so he's pointing at his sock no that's a sock and then he says the Russian captain says in that case I come from Moskok I did that bit but then the posh English guy says yes I think you probably do did I murder that gag it's on YouTube and you can decide whether you think it's funny it's kind of a little bit funny that's it for this week apart from the credits the producer was millie chu the assistant producer was maizey williams the production manager was francesca bassett the music in this series was by miguel de olivera the executive producer was aaron fellows this is a mindhouse studios production for spotify