Jameela Jamil | One Thing We MUST Stop Doing To Have a Better Holiday

0:03Welcome to Travel Secrets with me, Tanya Rose, podcast sharing wisdom for fellow travelers. Each week, I ask my guests to reveal their six travel secrets and the holidays and adventures that surround them. I would just like to say thank you to Mason Rose, the sales and communication agency that represents some of the finest hotels around the world for partnering with Travel Secrets, the podcast.

0:33Today, my guest is the wonderful Jamila Jamil, actress, presenter, writer, podcast host, activist known for her dynamic career and outspoken advisory on body image, disability and mental health. You rose to fame early 2000s, I think. Yeah, 2008. 2008 with when you hosted channel four's t4 you were the first solo presenter for bbc radio's official chart show and then you're very well known for your hilarious portrayal in the good place honestly makes me cry with laughter your name dropping is second to none thank you very much it is so so funny you're a podcast host and you've got two new podcasts which are just brilliant mistresses which i think is history yes history the history of uh the women that historians have worked hard to erase.

1:25Very good. And also Wrong Turns? Yes, Wrong Turns with Jameena Jamil, which is a very different podcast and is just pure comedy and silliness. It's anti-silver linings. It's anti-inspiration, pro-commiseration. It's a podcast about all the worst and most embarrassing, disgusting things that happen to us that have no silver lining, no great pearl of wisdom gained. It was just rubbish. And we just own that together. And we don't punch up we don't punch down we just punch ourselves it's hilarious and you've got very funny whale of a time yeah very very funny yes i love it and i and you did the podcast of my lovely friend elizabeth day yes how to fail yeah which is actually more about us totally and people often think that my podcast is a hit against hers it's not it's really just kind of against this like infuriating bro billionaire uh culture where it's like my darkest day led to like my bright future is a billion.

2:17It's like, fuck off. Leave us alone. Just get in your ice bath and die. And just tell us some funny stories at last. Before we get into your travel secrets, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and how travel has impacted the person you've become? Did you grow up traveling? How has travel impacted you? I didn't grow up traveling much. I mean, I lived in different places because we would go wherever the pound was strongest because we had financial issues. So I was born in London, but then grew up largely in Marbella in Spain because my grandmother lived there and went to Pakistan for a while then came back and then moved I think 13 times before I was the age of 11.

2:55It was really intense and so travel for fun was not something I really got to do as a kid but then I ended up in a career where I travel so much I've been in nine countries in the last six weeks. Oh wow. Yeah. I mean I think constantly on the moon. Actually, that's much more than me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm perpetually jet lagged. I feel like I've aged about 25 years. And how did you feel about growing up in all those different countries? Did you feel displaced or did you love it? Did it, you know, form you? I think as a kid, you just roll with the punches. You roll with whatever you're doing. And I think it was amazing because it set me up to never really feel at home anywhere.

3:29And that might sound bad, but actually when you're in a job where you're never, ever in the same place for more than a few months. Like I haven't been in the same place for more than about two or three months for 11 years. Wow. So I'm very au fait. I don't find it difficult to adapt to new apartments. Like everywhere I am is now my home. And so I think it was actually quite good and healthy and informative. I don't feel homesick. I don't know what that is even. And is that because you're traveling, filming? Filming, traveling, and then, you know, going on trips. I have a boyfriend who tours. And so I get to jump on a tour bus with him and travel the world.

4:05That's really fun. Or I'm on location or we go on a you know a much needed holiday every so often. I think I heard you talking about going on a plane with him when the turbulence was so horrendous. I actually felt sick listening to it thinking I think I thought I would die. I know well I mean I thought I was going to die and then I was really mad at him because I was like oh my god I can't believe I'm going to die for a 26 year old front man. How annoying I didn't even need to be on this plane I was just coming with him and then I thought oh god but I wouldn't want to be on the ground and And then he dies up here on his own.

4:34And that was the exact moment I knew I loved him, which is so annoying. I hate myself for that, but it is true. And you're still together. Yeah, exactly. We are still together. We used to go on some holidays as a kid, but we didn't have any money. So my mother would take us to Barbados during hurricane season. So the tickets were unbelievably cheap. No one wanted to go there. But also you spent, it was completely empty. And it would just be a week holding onto a tree for dear life with the highest waves you've ever seen in that area of the world it was so intense um so it was an adventure but you know like and like everything you do in the water is water sports even if you're just paddling around by yourself pouring rain so much like so much wind so you know that was the sort of thing we would do but it was always like there was always like my mother was very clever and resourceful with being able to take us to interesting places on an insane budget um and that was by endangering the entire family.

5:31Have you learned how to do that yourself? No, no, I haven't. You've gone the other way. Yeah, I've gone the other way. I'm very, very intense about the weather. Yeah. Let's get into your travel secrets. What's the number one destination you think everyone should go to once in their lifetime? I think Tokyo. Now, I know that other people would choose somewhere like Makapichu or somewhere like more, I don't know the seeing the pyramids in Egypt I'm a big city bitch you know I really I'm I'm not as moved by nature as I would like to say that I am I was born and raised in a concrete jungle and that is what I crave so I'm predisposed generally to cities and Tokyo is unlike anything I've ever seen i was staying in the peninsula uh in tokyo with james we went for two weeks and it is an insight into listen tokyo's got its problems japan's got its problems culturally uh nowhere's perfect but it is an insight into a culture of respect um that i think was so fascinating like going into a packed shopping mall and everyone's quiet and there's no chaos anywhere and if you leave your bag it's gonna be there when you come back exactly and the police are so bored that if anyone like nicks anyone's as in not nicks seals as in like anyone slightly bangs into another car 15 police officers turn up desperate with their pads desperate to cover something to do something with their day because there's nothing to do um and so it's such a beautiful place such amazing food such amazing people who are just very um very kind very thoughtful it's a very thoughtful culture very gentle culture and um the men don't feel devoid of masculinity there's just a kind of different understanding so that's what i experience i'm sure that someone who's local to there would feel differently but for me it was i i think the most unforgettable place and and the the the the the incredible marriage of such deep tradition of culture with such futuristic technology that it really does feel like you're in a sci-fi movie half of the time that you're there so I don't know how they've been able to hold on to the two because it feels like the more technological London and America become the more dehumanized and further and further from any of our original values we become so and in Japan they have got that deep rooted tradition and culture yeah yeah it's it's incredible and it's it's uh it's very baked into the culture so I felt very safe there like I went out walking one night at 3am and and I felt good and I felt safe and also like I'm six foot tall so they probably thought I was some sort of monster an alien who'd arrived exactly what were you doing in Tokyo when you went there we just went on holiday on holiday yeah we just wanted to see Japan it was somewhere that you know you just grow up desperate to see and I think you see films like Lost in Translation and all these other things you know you wonder if it's romanticized and it wasn't it was exactly as stunning and awe-inspiring and and I don't know what it is about the place but I felt so creative while I was there and the clothes are so creative and the way that people put themselves together and it just it's constant thoughtfulness and it you you get hit when you get back with the thoughtlessness of our decaying society no I agree I agree I think it's incredible and not for everyone no it's I mean it's but it's but it is the quietest calm as chaos you'll ever know I love the fact that yeah and also my boyfriend uh played a show there and this is how respectful people are, that no one like whoops or claps during the song.

8:59And after the song, everyone does like this kind of thunderous applause that just like lasts about, and then 20 seconds, everything stops. Like it was a perfectly orchestrated stop and then they're ready and silent for the next song. The only time they go a bit mad is when they do karaoke. Yes. And they've had a lot of whiskey and then they just go. Well, it's got to go somewhere with that energy, doesn't it? Has to, somewhere. Yeah, yeah. What a fun place for it to go. Exactly. what's your most unexpected travel experience it was at the peninsula in Tokyo I was in an earthquake yeah yeah it was like a 6.3 it was quite an intense earthquake and we were thankfully all the buildings there are built to withstand earthquakes but but the but the hotel the top of the hotel you could hear it straining so it's going like and then you look out the window and other you know lesser well-built um hotels are just like swaying way yeah that's it swaying around like a drunk cunt it was really intense what did you do did you get under a table or what did you left the room we just stayed in bed i was like if i die i just want to die in bed like i did that's what i want to go yeah yeah i you know i went and put on a nice outfit quickly because yeah because i i feel very intensely that what i die in is what i'm going to haunt people in so whenever i think I'm about to die I always dress nicely like if I have an operation I bring a nice a nice outfit to the hospital just in case because I feel like that's I feel very intensely that I want to look fabulous when I scare the shit out of people that I don't like have you been to any other peninsulas I haven't no I think no yes the one in Los Angeles oh yeah I've just come back from Istanbul it is incredible right on the Bostro so you have to go there amazing I'm desperate to go to Istanbul have you been there before no no no I'm desperate it's amazing because you've got the east and the west yeah and the history of that place It's so unbelievable.

10:47Even if you just do one thing, you do the cistern, which is the underwater thing. It's the most beautiful thing you've ever seen. You have to go. And that hotel right on the Bosphorus is so, I mean, we were the worst tourists because we kept cancelling everything because the hotel was so good. We kept saying, no, no, no, we'll do something later. We just stayed by the pool. But it was really fabulous. Yeah. I highly recommend it. What's your most underrated or overrated travel experience? I don't know if I've been anywhere overrated because I tend to avoid very, very buzzy places the majority of the time Tokyo doesn't feel like a buzzy place it feels but you know I haven't been to and I and I hear that these places are amazing like Tulum and like all the kind of celeb spots um I went to because I didn't want to go to Lake Como because I had a feeling it would be packed with tourists looking for George Clooney um I went to Lake Garda oh it's which is like just kind of around the border of Switzerland and Italy.

11:43And it was fucking empty in July and gorgeous. And you've got the kind of the breeze from the lake. And so it's not a million degrees the way the rest of Italy is. The food is unbelievable. And everything is transported by these very slow, very Italian ferries. And it is a, it is a view like you will never like be able to fathom. it is so gorgeous especially like when you go all the way around until you get to experience the the part of Switzerland that is so stunning and then you're able to see that Italian Riviera lifestyle and and I remember just feeling so stressed thinking how am I ever gonna keep this you know you're desperately trying to film it on your phone but you can't cap you there's no way to capture that beauty um and so I I think about it all the time of wanting to get back to Lake Garda it and there's also something about the energy there that just felt I was I didn't realize how stressed I am all the time until I relaxed there and so I think that was and it's cheap as chips because it's not one of the buzzy ones that everyone goes to it's like an hour and 20 minute drive from Milan and the most I never wanted to I'm never leaving there's a lovely hotel there called Le Fay on right on the lake it's fabulous oh great really nice if you go back you try that I will yeah and on Lake Como I totally understand what you're saying because every time I do a trip there people say can we go on a boat and find Georgia's house exactly but there is the most beautiful hotel called Passalaqua it's only got 30 bedrooms oh wow and it's privately owned is it haunted though because that's one of the things that stresses me out about Italy I don't know yeah so one of the things I always google this can be one of my travel tips um is um it like it's a hotel haunted I'm very intense about that sort of thing and one time I can tell sometimes just from a picture i once uh was supposed to go on location to new mexico and there was a hotel i was like something's wrong with that hotel it's very fancy five stars and i was like there's something fucking wrong with there so i googled it and it turned out it was the first i think first ever um mental institution in an either in the whole of the united states or in that part of the country and it's like do you know what they used to do to people in those hospitals and you just saw that from the picture and the reports the reports were things like people having their bedding pulled off them in the middle of the night um and someone turning up in the mirror so that's the only thing it freaks me out with the older hotels i don't know if that one is i've been to one in naples to an ibis for that reason sometimes travel lodge yeah travel so much chaos anyone can get into it there's a haunted hotel in naples i was lying in bed fast asleep and suddenly all my windows opened all the lights went on absolutely not did you stay there well I phoned my husband, who was then my boyfriend, and I said, you cannot leave me on the telephone all night.

14:31You need to talk to me all night. And he said, put the television on. I went down the next morning, like at six in the morning or something, and I told them, they went, oh yeah, that's a haunted bedroom. Oh, for fuck's sake. That should be written on the door. And overrated? Overrated. What did you think of LA when you lived there? I liked LA. I liked LA, but I did LA differently need to how everyone does LA you know I um I moved in with my friends who I've known since I was 19 and we're all British in the house and there's five of us there and um I didn't really participate in the party scene like there isn't there isn't culture in Los Angeles and so I think a lot of people find it very distressing when they get there because it's so vast and so if you don't know where you're going you can't just wander around there's no walking which I think drove me insane about Los Angeles is that there's no way to really discover the city and I don't drive so I was just you know I was relying on everyone else um but I think it's amazing in the fact that in such you know within 40 minutes you can either be in the most incredible national park or you can be at the most beautiful beach or you can be right in the city like all the rock and roll and great food but there is a an inherent lack of history and lack of culture there and that works in two ways you know in one way it's it's like the architecture is fucking foul right it's it's so bizarre that there's you know you'll have like a miami house next to something that looks like an ex-mahina torture home and then a tudor english like a badly replicated tudor english home and then a cata and it's just like all next to each other and no one gives a shit about any kind of continuity in the area whatsoever so you're just what it feels like disneyland or something it's bonkers and it's it's so like box fresh these box fresh Tudor homes and it's because they've romanticized us so much like they think that we're just like so dignified and if only they knew um and so but at the same time there's something brilliant about that because it speaks to LA's culture which is the fact that you can be whoever you want you can dress however you want you can design your home however you want you don't have to fit in with anyone and so it is a culture of individuals i think we had this idea because of instagram and hollywood that it's all like you know loads of clones of each other but california los angeles uh as well in particular is a very individualist to its detriment in many ways but it's but it's exciting and i feel like i got to reinvent myself there and so did all of my friends we got nice that you're all british in the same yeah we got to find out who we were because you know when you don't have the stresses of a big city like someone farting in your face on the tube or you know traffic or cyclists or um i don't know everyday life bad weather there's so many things to be able to blame your bad mood on or your feeling of constant stress but it's such a perfect place that you're forced to confront what is wrong what's wrong with you and so I think I could never have healed emotionally and mentally and none of us could had we not gone there and been forced to to deal with ourselves and did you get scouted here to go there or did you go over there and no audition no I was never scouted no no I just went over there because I was sick of England you know I was I was frustrated that I was being you know made to feel like at 28 my time was up you know and I was being told to reinvent myself and I think that's really peculiar because I've never heard of a man being told that he needs to reinvent himself in his 20s um and this kind of tick-tock feeling uh that I was you know my moment was running out like I've been told for 17 years that my 15 minutes is going to be up soon and it's like at what point are we gonna acknowledge that this is a lie yeah at what point are we gonna stop telling women panicking women about their 15 minutes so we're watching countless women go on to have these long dignified elegant brilliant careers and judy dench and i know you know olivia coleman and kate blanchett and all these wonderful women who just continue to read like you know maggie smith was in that wonderful advert for loevo before she died 100 100 and so it's just so preposterous to me but i think i was you know i was offended by the way i was being treated like it's all over now like I've done all the things I could do and so now how am I going to reinvent myself I should go on a reality tv show and win over the public and I just thought no not no no other broadcaster is being told this I went to America to just kind of start again and become a writer or a dj and have an adventure um and then I accidentally became an actor you know I was told there was an audition for a very tall very annoying woman and my agent looked at me and thought well obviously that's you sent me for the audition I'd never acted before and I got it so and it was brilliant by some miracle Ted Danson yeah magical first ever time acting and it's opposite Ted Danson and Maya Rudolph and Lisa Kudrow and Kristen Bell are all these incredible actors like real actors and I'm just this twat you know like doggy paddling for my life amongst them to not like ruin the show and you didn't you enhanced it hugely it was brilliant brilliant brilliant thanks it was beginner's luck let's talk about food and drink it's so important in our lives but it's so part of travel so where do you like eating what do you like eating how how does it sum up travel food and drink and what you know i'm a food tourist so food is the main goal it's the main objective of every trip and so i think that's probably what drags me to italy as often as i go and france because i love the food there um but exotic food i think one of the things I really loved about being in Mauritius is it's such a melting pot because obviously it's got such a devastating history of slavery and but it is but that has resulted in all these different people being in this one place who would never normally be together and the way they have managed to overcome such pain and such hardship is just to like beat it to death with love and it is such a loving beautiful place and you experience you know London's a melting pot obviously but they really fuse cultures together in Mauritius you know uh and and in their cuisine and it's uh to die for and so I go I'm very very motivated by how great the food is I'm not going if the food's not good shit yeah if I'm not gonna enjoy the food where do you go when you go to Mauritius where do i go when i go to mauritius i've only ever been once i stayed at the shangri-la hotel which was gorgeous and it was right on the seafront like pretty much in the sea and it was stunning and to die for and had some of the best it had five star michelin michelin star restaurants inside but it was the buffet that was the killer um it was really embarrassing because the buffet was again it was everything that Mauritius has to offer all the different like the full spectrum of the different cultures from the curries and Chinese food and everything and it was just the most impeccably cooked food all completely authentic to each culture better than we'd eaten in each of those countries ever and so we were you know going out to these like lovely Michelin star restaurants in the evening and then we would sneak out around the back so that none of the staff from the Michelin star restaurants because the fucking food is like this big like you can't I'm five foot ten and a half and he's six foot seven like we can't starving yeah we're still starving and the food is amazing but also we can't stop thinking about the buffet so we would run around we're two massive people so it's so pathetic thinking that we're not going to be seen yeah and obviously the staff is all interchanging between all the restaurants we got busted every night sneaking after they've just watched us have like a five course meal sneaking around to the buffet and eating the sourdough pizza and then the Chinese and then the curry and then the double dipping yeah it's insane but yeah no I'm very uh and I I'm very uh insistent on food advice from locals not from my friends I need to know where the locals eat I I don't want to eat anywhere where I can understand the language of the people sitting there speaking.

22:37It's the same when I go to an Indian restaurant here. If there aren't Indians in there, I'm not going in. So that's it. No, I totally and utterly agree. And that's the sign of a good restaurant. If you go to a Chinese restaurant and it's full of Americans, you leave. Yeah, 100%. Because the concierge has told them to go there. Yeah. But if it's full of Chinese people, that's where you go. Yeah, 100%. And so that's, I'm quite intense about that. But I'm a huge, huge foodie. and Mauritius I will send you to because there's a fantastic hotel in Mauritius I know lovely really yeah great I love it there and also the kindness of the people and the enthusiasm of the people and the fact that there's like you have Hindu temples right next to a church right next to a mosque and there's no there's no feeling of friction these people are just determined to have turned all that hatred into love and it's just such a safe lovely culture and that to me is a full melting pot.

23:29We describe New York and London as such, but you don't have a mosque on the doorstep of a church. You know, it's incredible. It's interesting. I haven't thought of it. It's a lovely island. And it contributes to the, you know, we had such a happy, I'd never in my life experienced anything like the happiness of the staff in Mauritius, where there was a guy who would greet us every morning. And as soon as he'd see us, for some reason, he'd just start singing the black eyed peas like 9am he'd be like tonight's gonna be a good night like me and james just sort of like oh my god but i loved him so much um maybe he thought you were a bit of will i am yeah totally and unbelievable and we went swimming with dolphins oh did you yeah i got to feed a monkey that had the biggest bollocks you've ever seen ever in your life like the it was like half monkey half bollocks it's crazy it was crazy i was like how is this monkey like getting from branch to branch with this load you know I had a breast reduction like I you know I really have like over empathize with anyone who's got a body part that's you know a little bit intense and it's just just these giant bollocked monkeys very aggressive loved it I'd love to swim with dolphins I'm not sure I'd want to see a monkey with huge bollocks yeah well I mean dolphins are quite sexual so you never know what you're going to get so I was like wearing three pairs of underpants i was like bloody hell that's brilliant what's your top travel tip oh top travel tip i mean these are i'm such a little old man so i have like my silly things which are um google if it's haunted obviously yes very important because i could ruin ruin your trip bring your own pillow bring your own pillow beds are unpredictable even in the finest of establishments bring your own pillow it'll immediately reset your nervous system make you like it's a smell and a sensation that tells your brain like i am safe there's some consistency if everything's new the first night's sleep anywhere is shit because your brain does not switch off so bring your own pillow but where'd you put that doesn't it take half your suitcase no you just put you just carry it in your hand like a fucking big girl that's what you do you grow up and you have it on the plane as well yeah yeah exactly with you know with an extra sheet but you take your own pillow i'm fiercely um intense about that and well researched I'm not one of these fly by the sea in my pants girls like I'm not I'm not into that I'm not I think it's such a devastating waste of an experience whenever I used to do that when I was younger I would leave and then everyone be like oh did you go to yeah and did you go to and that just felt so awful and so I think while you want to be like breezy and spontaneous don't be breezy and spontaneous be rigid planet be planned even if you don't follow through on those plans at least know where you're going to and don't be confined to what the concierge recommends I think it's so so important to really research it's like you're getting on a plane for hours you're going somewhere you've never been to before see all the shit do all the things and then I think one of my and I don't know if this is the kind of travel tip you're looking for but fucking take pictures and videos of everything you are not not being present take pictures and videos of everything we are overwhelmed with information in a way that we have never been before our brains are not designed to take up this much information I can't remember what I did yesterday and it's so easy to forget these moments and you're making these memories so you must capture them and I think women in particular don't allow themselves to be in photographs or they get rid of photos they delete photographs that they don't like in photos you know where your arms squished against your body or you've got a double chin because you're laughing because you're having fun um you know your your your sunburn all these different things and you know mums especially don't want to be seen in their swimsuit maybe especially a new mum so she will count herself out the photo she'll always be the one taking the photo please take the photos please take those photos and be in those photos um capture those moments be captured in those moments don't delete the photo just because you don't look your best in the photograph because later you will look back and you will forget those moments and your children will not have memories of you from chunks of time or in those places and all the fun things you did my you know a lot of my friends have lost their parents and and it's it is almost every single one of them has only got pictures of them with their dad because the mothers took them because the mother took them do that it's ridiculous partially because we're the only ones who think to take a photograph my boyfriend has never like picked up his camera you know from like unless you're a professional photographer you have no instinct as a man I think to capture anything um but I also think that you know so women are much more considerate about you know we plan all the time women plan our third act from the time we're in our late 20s we're figuring out who's my best friend who am I going to have around me when I'm you know in my old age who am I going to move into an old people's home it's like you know we're always gathering and building our lives men just atrophy men lose touch with their friends en masse they don't organize trips the way that we do they don't really organize socializing and largely and this has been proven catelyn moran wrote about this in her book that men don't prepare for their third act so they just become friends with they hope to become friends with the husband of the wives that their their wife has made friends with that's really interesting yeah and so you know women are always building so i think women are always thinking about memories and photo albums and and and all of this we're traditionally more we're socialized to be more sentimental i don't Do you print your photos?

29:03Print my photos, photographs all over the house of my favorite funny moments. It's so uplifting. It's so important. You're not not being present. But I think also women take the photographs because they don't want to be in the photographs because they don't think they look camera ready and they feel so embarrassed about it. And I remember once I looked bad in all of the photos as a teenager on a holiday trip. I looked really, really bad. unbelievably bad and I was encouraged by a family member to delete to throw away all of the photos I hope you didn't I did and I will never see those pictures ever again um because that person said that I looked so ugly in the photographs and like that was a great holiday it was like my first ever great holiday and I don't have any documented evidence of it because I was trained from such a young age and this goes in at a young age and you as a as a grown woman you know your kids are taking this in your daughters are taking this in so if you're not you don't want to be photographed you're like oh no no no don't get me like don't get me or you hide in the back or you can just see one half of your face so that people know you were technically there your kids are ingesting that being like oh it's important to look perfect it's like no you're not going to care later there's there's some sort of weird phenomena where the first time we see a photo we instantly have a much more critical eye for that photograph and then three weeks later you see the same photograph and you have a much more objective view on it and then a year later you don't care and the further time goes on and so i know this sounds ridiculous to talk about on a travel podcast but i do think it's pivotal please take the fucking photographs because these are some of the best moments in your life what are you going to fucking want to remember like being at work with jim like in the copy room no and also the photos of laughing or eating and being completely spontaneous are so much better than being posing yeah rigid yeah it's infuriating it's so gross and annoying and I don't judge anyone for I understand why and I've literally done it myself but now I will not delete any photograph in which I look bad it's like it's there I just know I'll look on it later with fonder eyes so I save it for that and what you were saying about looking you know a week later a month later I mean I now look back on photos of myself when I was a teenager thinking when I was that age we look terrible and I'm like oh my god I look bloody fantastic why did I think that oh my god I didn't want to leave the room I don't think I wore a swimsuit until October last year I wouldn't wear a swimsuit I wouldn't wear a two-piece bikini for my entire since I was 14 because I was so worried about my body and I like look back at this that body and I'm like what was I doing and what was anyone doing I know what's your most poignant sorry have you ever had any of these interviews like this I love it oh that's just brilliant what's your most poignant travel memory I mean I'm unfortunately I'm a very very silly person so I have a silly answer but but part part of what I found to be a poignant I find culture and the way that people treat each other to be something that I always take with me when I leave a place more than the you know the amazing spectacles I've seen and the beautiful places I've been lucky to see in history I've taken in it's the it's the the culture of communication between people and especially how women are treated that's something I care very deeply about and I don't like going to places where women are subjugated and I don't like going to places that feel dangerous for women um and I hate that that is something that restricts my movement in the world but also it makes me it's so distressing and terrifying um and both in berlin and barbados during hurricane season um although i was able to go there as an adult on my own terms when i wasn't in a near-death situation and the culture around sex and openness around sex and and the way that feeds into the environment and the sense of peace you have.

33:07So I was in this corner shop. You can tell me if this is just the wrong kind of answer. I'm sorry. No, it's your answer. And there were dildos everywhere in the corner shop. And I was like, oh my God, if I walked into a sex corner shop. Is this in Berlin? This isn't, no. Oh, this is Barbados. This is Barbados. Yeah, obvious in Berlin. It's like handcuffs, like gimp mask. I was going to say that's everywhere. Yeah, yeah. You can't get a Kit Kat without getting something for your asshole in Berlin. but um but with uh but with um i was staying in barbados and every shop has just got something that's very open about sex they're just open about sex and apparently sexual crime is very low in barbados compared to most other places in the world and there's just like the way that everyone dances with each other the way that people dress like the there's the the women walk with a sense of self-assurance and safety and there's a again no place is perfect no places you know entirely safe for women but there is this feeling of being out late and and um and enjoying yourself and enjoying your sexuality and and not feeling like you're on guard all of the time that I found so special and like watching my you know elderly Pakistani mother like see a massive dildo for the first time in a corner shop was obviously like a remarkable experience you know what it was no no it took a minute to explain it was really intense but then also berlin for me is somewhere that i went that i didn't expect to be moved by in this way because you have this idea culturally of germans when you're in england that they would be cold or humorless you know and very rigid like there's a lot of kind of you know there's a hangover regarding germany but i think there's also you know the way they're portrayed in film and media And actually, when I went there, I found that the people were so caring towards each other.

34:54And like, it's a quite socialist country in the way that it moves and the way that any stranger will help you. They don't walk past someone who's in distress and there aren't a lot of homeless people in the street. And there are elderly people, like properly octogenarian, 80s and 90s, like elderly people out late, like late, late, like midnight, 1 a.m. drinking coffee with each other. and I was so struck by this because I was like fuck I never see this like after the age of about 60 you're expected just to go and sit by a window somewhere and fuck off and these are people who are sitting with people of all different ages part of the culture um and out late living their lives like life is not over once you're no longer deemed like fuckable or valuable like your value grows in parts of Europe in a way that it doesn't in England and it made me so angry because I didn't even consider this really a possibility because it had been such a long time since I'd really been immersed in that because I spent so much time in America and England you'd been accustomed to the invisibility of people who've just been here a long time and who is more interesting to talk to on a night out like who's got more to say who's got more humor like more stories like more perspective and they don't throw people away and that I found very I really honestly didn't know that Germany was like that yeah it really is and I mean you see the same kind of in italy and and um but again it's more of a kind of non-culture you know what i mean where it's like you're in the house and you're looking after it and people you're with the people but it was like they were just out out out out in their 80s and 90s out in those clubs i went for a walk on my own i was like i couldn't believe it yeah like still being sexual like i went into berghain the club and like it's like a eight-year-old woman with her fucking tits out just swinging them I was like this is amazing and so that like made me think like god I think when I get older I want to go to Germany I want to grow old in Berlin because I'm not invisible there I'll be part of the infrastructure you'll be plotting that with your people you were living within LA which is your third act of who you're going to grow old well yes I'm planning on building a commune I'm looking at the moment for land I'm selling my house and I'm looking for land I'm looking to build a commune in either Europe or, I don't know, maybe it's going to be Thailand or somewhere, but I'm going to call it Jamilville.

37:14It is a cult. But look at my hair. Of course I would start a cult. Jamilville. The charisma of a cult leader. I talk to my girlfriends about that all the time. Yeah. Where are we all going to live together when we're older? This is what I'm saying. I guarantee there is no man having that same conversation. So I was like, right, we're building Jamilville. we're gonna we're gonna have a um a commune built of all of our funniest friends and they can live with us even if they have children i don't want children but then that they have to live further away from my house in the commune fantastic so down by the bottom i think i'll be looking in you better get on with it though yeah oh dear so i asked you to bring a photograph the photo i'm going to give you is just a picture of me at a buffet sampling every possible it's two giant plates and it's not me being a slim actress being like oh my god I eat so much oh look at me that's not what I mean it as what it what it means is like I had anorexia for 20 years right I was the girl that didn't eat on the holiday I was the girl that worried about what I'd look like in the pool tomorrow if I ate tonight and now I am free uh from that feeling And now I'm eating to live and I'm living to eat as well.

38:31And I'm making up for all this lost time of all the places that I now have on my mind to go back to and eat fucking properly at and take the pictures of. Like there's no pictures of any of the places that I went. Everything I say is always from my own mistake. And so it's a picture of me chowing the fuck down at a buffet. Just such a stupid combination of foods. Like nothing. I can't believe I didn't shit myself on that trip because of the amount of different food. It was wrong and bad, but it was delicious. And I felt amazing. I've had an incredible time. Fantastic. And before I let you go, what's next for you?

39:11Where are you going and what's next for you in life? What's next for me? What's next for me? I need to figure out. I really, really desperately want to go to Thailand. That's somewhere that I've never gone before. so I'm investigating where to go in like I want to explore more of Asia um so that's the kind of next holiday I'm kind of circling around um and then it will be work and travel and um I don't really know I mean I've never known what's going on in my career I've got a bunch of movies coming out and I'm shooting some more next year I'm shooting a movie about North Korea with Ron Howard called Pyongyang home video in the new year so I wonder where that will take me yeah intense and so I have no idea but but looking for a great summer holiday and making sure to not forget to carve out time for that because I think life gets carried away you know and we spend money on so much shit that we shouldn't be spending money on and now I feel very dedicated to creating memories like something that I uh I really I really have a very small amount of patience a large amount of empathy but a small amount of patience for who I was in my 20s because I think she really fucked up my life and fucked up my body and so now I think all the time about my 85 year old self and what she'd think of me now and every decision I make every holiday I go go to every yes and no that I dole out every meal I'm about to eat I think of her all the time she's with me at all times and I wonder what she would want me to do and she would want me to make memories for her she's not going to care how my arms looked or how hard I worked or what a good girl I was or you know how reliable I was she's going to want to know that I left her memories to keep her warm when life slows down when she's raving and with her tits out yeah um so that's brilliant that's the plan is just to create memories well if I can help ask my opinion I I would love to help send you to some wonderful places all over the time.

41:20Thank you, Jimmy. It's been amazing. You've been wonderful. Thank you for sharing your travel secrets. I appreciate that.