January 9, 2025 • 49 mins
In the sixth episode of Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin, one of Ireland's bestselling authors Marian Keyes talks Francesca through her 16th novel and why people crave love stories.
And Australian author Trent Dalton visited New Zealand for the Auckland Writers Festival - and popped in to studio for an interview.
Hollywood star Diane Kruger starred in Kiwi film Joika - and joined Francesca for a chat.
Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin brings you the best interviews from Newstalk ZB's The Sunday Session.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB. The big names, the fascinating guests,
the thoughtful conversations, bringing you the best interviews from the
Sunday Session. This is Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin, powered
(00:27):
by News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi and welcome to the summer edition of Great Chats.
I'm Francesca Rudkin and in this podcast, we're bringing some
of the best feature interviews from the Sunday Session on
news Talks EDB. Throughout twenty twenty four, Irish author Marian
Keys released her sixteenth novel And twenty twenty four and
she joined me to talk about why her books resonate
with people, why people crave love stories, and the impact
(00:51):
of quitting alcohol on her career. I started by asking
her about the specific agenda she had when it came
to writing her latest book, My Final Mistake.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yes, I had planned to write a book about tricky people,
difficult people, and when it came to doing it, I
started about two years ago. We were just coming out
of the pandemic and Russia had just invaded Ukraine and
I thought I can't I can't write about people I'm
afraid of, and I thought I would like to write
(01:24):
a love story, because a love story is what I
want to read, and I kind of I always write
for myself, but I wanted to write a love story
about people who are not nineteen, you know, or even
twenty seven. I wanted people in middle age. And I
want to write about two characters who had had several
near misses over the course of twenty years, and they've
(01:49):
hurt each other like you know, as human beings do
to each other, and now they've ended up in the
same place in the West of Ireland, and they're having
to work together. And I was interested in how how
we deal with relationships when we met a person from
we were much younger, and that kind of picture of
(02:09):
who they are has crystallized in our head and we
have to realize they've changed. And also I was very
interested in the idea of well, this came up a
lot for me during lockdown of the things that I
had done when I was younger that I really regretted,
you know, things that I made decisions at the time
that I thought were the best, but with retrospect, I
(02:33):
realized that they were. I could have been kinder, I
could have been more honest, I could have handled things
with more compassion. And that is also part I think
of like a long you know, a long relationship, you
hurt a person, but you wouldn't do it now.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So there was a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
There's yelts, there's regret, there's longing, there's love, you know,
but it's all very parochial, if you get me. I
wanted to keep the outside world out of this. I
just wanted to be about human relationships, friendships, romances, family, community.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It's interesting you say that you were writing what you
needed at that moment, but actually I think that that
was a very universal feeling, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, I've subsequently discovered that, like people are craving love stories,
you know, because like what we read goes through sort
of phases, and you know, I mean I still read
a lot of crime because I know it sounds weird,
but like everything gets sorted out in a crime novel,
well usually, and the same with love stories. You know,
(03:50):
things get fixed, there is a happy ending of sorts.
And you know, even before I had started throughout this,
I'd been reading an awful lot of especially enemies, enemies
to lovers just were they were doing it for me.
And then when Curtis Sittingfeld wrote her book Romantic Comedy,
it was like, hooray, we have the stamp of approval.
(04:11):
If somebody is amazing as her is writing a I mean,
obviously she could never write anything that was cliched, but
the trope, the trope is a familiar one, and if
it's okay by her, then it's okay for the rest
of us to write it also. And you have the comfort,
Like that's all I'm longing for is comfortable reads that
(04:35):
keep the world at bay because the word is kind
of sharp and pointy right now.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
We shouldn't be snobby about what we read though, should wait,
we should just help just Brice going, I need a
bit of that, I need a bit of this. I
love Romantic her book as well, Curtis's book as well,
But it did kind of take me by surprise.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Isn't it interesting?
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Because I will always defend the genre and say there's
so much more to it, you know, than people give
the credit for. And I also say that people should
read whatever they want. But then when it comes to
kind of defending our own work, it is a bit Oh,
I don't know if I have the right to do this,
which is nonsense.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Of course, Am I correct that when you were studying
law you used to read Mills and Boons books in
the week.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yes, yes, yeah, I mean absolutely, like I'd spend the week,
you know, learning about oh, you know, court cases and
laws and accent the history of law. And then my
tweet on a Saturday afternoon was to stay in bed
and read one or two Mills and Boons. My mother
(05:41):
was always getting them from the library, and they helped
me so much. You know, it was light relief. It
took my head into a place where, like I knew
it was going to be okay. My worry was gone.
I didn't have to worry about whatever had been worrying about,
you know, about what I had learned or not learned
more to the point during the week.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Yeah, it was such a.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Pleasure, embrace the guilty pleasure the world.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Well we must call it a guilty pleasure.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Yes, it's pleasure.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
No, no, no, it's just a pleasure exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Fair call the Welsh family. They really do keep delivering,
don't they. Your first even novel featured the Welsh family,
And now this is I think book number eight, which features.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
It, is it is?
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
I mean I don't want to kind of scare away
people who've never read any of them, because they are
all standalone. Like I've written about Anna in one other book,
but it was a long time ago and her life
is very different now. But the dynamic of a big, loud,
messy Irish family is something that I am very familiar
with and that I really value, and I love bringing
(06:52):
that to each subsequent Welsh novel. Even though this is
Anna's story, the rest of them also all show up.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Is it your love of the family that keeps you
writing about them? Or is it reader demand?
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I mean, okay, I know this sounds arrogant, and I
really don't mean it to be that way, but I
can only write what I want to write. I think
any writer who kind of tries to anticipate what readers
wants is doing everyone a disservice. Any writer who tries
to write what they think a market wants from them,
(07:32):
Oh well, I can't. I can only speak to myself.
I couldn't do it.
Speaker 6 (07:35):
No.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I I am very very connected to my own family.
I have four siblings. My dad died five years ago,
but my mother is still the most powerful woman on
the planet. She is this tiny little matriarch. We are
all terrified of her. I have nieces, I have nephews,
My siblings have spouses. I like us all to be together,
(08:00):
and I kind of feel uncomfortable if one of us
is missing, when there's only seventeen of us instead of eighteen.
I am almost fetishistic in my love of family. So
I love writing about families. I love writing about Oh,
you know, the way we're giving our identity within a family,
and that remains unchanged. You know, you get it very
(08:23):
early on, and like, I'm sixty now and I'm still
that person. You know, I'm the I'm the I'm the
bossy one, I'm the I'm the martyr, I'm the clipboard
person who gets very angry if everyone is late.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
You know, we all have.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Our roles to play, and we sort of slip into
them with each other, but we are We're more than
the roles we give each other. But yeah, I love
I love families. I love books about them. I love
being in one.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I did giggle when I read that your mother called
her books philth She she received Woman Has, She received
a copy of the lightest book is, she reported Beck,
who thoughts it.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yes, yes, she said, and you'll know what I'm well,
people will know what I'm talking about when they've read
that X changed an awful lot and became a much
better person. And she also said it was very funny,
which I appreciated. I mean, she is the great withholder
of praise. She didn't actually say the magic words good girl, Marion,
(09:28):
but I like to think it was implied.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Oh wonderful. You record the audio books yourself. Do you
enjoy doing that?
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Yes? I love it.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I've only started. This is just the third novel I've
done in all these years, because I tried a long
time ago with nonfiction and the technology was it basically
if your stomach rumbled, you lost the morning's work. But
it's all different now. And the only thing that I
find horrific is saying the sex scenes, because it's a
(10:04):
very intimate thing recording an audio Like it's just me
and Roy the my producer, my sound engineer, my director,
and like it's just me and him in this kind
of very dark it's dark and sound proved space. But
he's just really good at sort of he laughs, you know,
(10:25):
he makes me laugh. But even saying the words out
loud are kind of hard, and then I'm thinking, oh,
why why did I.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
Why did I write this?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (10:36):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I can.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
I can just imagine.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Your latest, your last book, the twenty twenty book grobbn
Ups that has been picked up by Netflix, which is
very exciting because I can I can just see this
as a television series. Are you excited about that or
is it a bit hard to kind of hand it
over to a different medium and allow them to kind
of take it and give it a different life.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I'm really excited, Francesca.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
I'm really really excited, and I.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Don't mind at all handing it over because I know
nothing about that world, and I'm really kind of curious
to see who they'll cast. There's there was a very
handsome young man in the book called Ferdia. There's been
great excitement about who's going to get cast as Furdia.
(11:27):
It's a really lovely I mean, it's a wonderful thing
to happen, and it's not something that brings me any
anxiety at all. It's just utter delight and real pride.
Like I'm really honored by this, and I feel the
people the production company seesaw they made they made Nine
(11:49):
Perfect Strangers, one of the Leanne Mariarty books, and they
also they also made Slow Horses. I don't know if you.
Speaker 7 (11:58):
Oh my god, it's the best, isn't it? The utter
and complete best? So I have so much faith in them.
And they're going to film in Ireland, which I'm also
thrilled about. So yeah, it's all lovely.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You were also honored recently by having a portrait painted,
which now hangs in the National Art Gallery, which is
it's a beautiful portrait. Were you happy with that?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah? Again, I had no expectations. I mean I was
really surprised when they asked me. And I also felt
that like the artist had to portray me however she
saw me. So I didn't want to see any of
the work in progress because I didn't want to try
and influence it, because if I looked horrific, I mean
(12:45):
obviously I would be like on my knees pleading with her,
you know, to fix me, fix me, you know, give
me the give me the makeover, give me a blow up.
And so I was braced to look like you know,
the Francis Bacon portraits that he did, Yes, like you know,
call me a phillistine all you're like, but I would
not call them flattering or you see, I have a
(13:07):
really asymmetrical face, So I mean, I think at the
best of times, I look like something from Picasso's Cubist period.
And I was prepared to kind of look at myself
and flint, but I was I was just thrilled, Like
it's really not only do I look nice in it,
but I feel like she got me. You know that
(13:30):
there's a look in the eyes that I recognize of
kind of, oh, this means mischief. You know that I'm
trying to be serious, but I'm planning to say something
inappropriate at annie second. The whole thing it was, it
was just really I felt like, oh, I felt sort
(13:53):
of like I have nothing left to prove if they're
giving me this honor, Like it was a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I mean, it is a very big honor, and it's
it's a as you say, you've had this thirty year career,
you are a national treasure and alan and yet I
saw a photo of you get the hard copy of
your latest book, and you looked as I've joyed and
thrilled and grateful as you probably did when you got
(14:24):
your first book. It was really lovely to say you
don't take any of this for granted, right.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Oh, Like, I absolutely don't. I mean, I just say
a couple of things. I mean, you in New Zealand
have been very very good to me, and many of
you will know that, Like, thirty years ago, I was
miird and alcoholic drinking and I had just come out
of rehab. And I so often think about what just
(14:53):
how lucky I've been, just how incredibly fortunate I've been,
you know, to be able to stop drinking, and like
I was given so much help, and that everything that
has happened to me is completely be a beyond what
I could have imagined for myself. And I think, I mean,
I do think it's important to stay grateful. But it's
(15:15):
easy to stay grateful because I mean, I'm in London
at the moment, and that was where I did the
worst of my drinking. Every time I'm here, like, I'm
happy to be here because it reminds me of you know,
there's a parallel version, there's a ghost version of me
walking the streets living a very different life, and the
fact that I'm I felt so worthless and now that
(15:36):
I'm allowed to write books that I enjoy writing and
that I feel proud of and that other people enjoy reading.
I just that is good fortune. I don't even have
the words for it. How grateful and thrilled I am.
And with every book that I write, I think, Okay,
this is the one where it just you know, the
(15:57):
wheels come off. I won't be able to finish it,
and I'll just you know, I will disappear into egno me.
So the fact that I got a finished copy, you
know that I manage to finish it, and they agreed
to publish it. It's you know, I am so blessed.
I am so fortunate, and I know it.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
The biggest names from the Sunday session great chats with
Bran Jeska Rudkin on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks at
B That.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Was the wonderful Marion Keys. So delightful. Right, Marion is
one of Ireland's most successful authors, which's a national treasure.
But what struck we were interviewing her was how humble
she was. She even flicked the zoom camera on and
she showed me how she was doing the interview, which
was from her bed. So I got to see the
whole room. She showed me the whole room and there
(16:45):
she is lying in bed, just delightful. Another one of
my favorite guests on the Sunday Session this year was
acclaimed Ozzie author Trent Dalton, author of Boyce Swallows, Universe,
Love Stories and Lola in the Mirror. Trent attended the
Auckland Writers' Festival in May and received a standing ovation
after his session. So I started off by gratulating him
(17:07):
on his festival appearance and asking him what it meant
to him. Congratulations for yesterday, because I don't I can't
recall seeing a standing ovation in a filled theater at
Auckland Writer's Festival. But what a response. How did that
feel to know that your stories mean so much to people?
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Oh, Francesco, I've been thinking about it. I went back
to my hotel and I was just shaking my head.
My editor over in Australia couldn't believe it. She saw
it all on Instagram and she's like, what's going on
over there?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
What did you say?
Speaker 5 (17:37):
What did you say? And it was so beautiful and
I just I kind of said it yesterday. It was
this idea that when I have incredibly inspiring moments like that,
And thank you Auckland, by the way, like for just
being so kind to me. But I really think of
the great fear, you know, the great fear that I
had in writing about that stuff that you introed with.
(17:58):
You know, I was so terrified about telling the world
why I love my family. Francesca, like, how how silly
is that, you know? And and when those people stood
up yesterday, I'm just like started thinking about my mom
and my dad. My dad is not around anymore. And
this guy that you're saying who went to you know,
this drug dealer guy who was kind of like, you know,
a real, very real father figure to me. I just
(18:21):
like thank those people because it was talking about them
and trying to tell the world why I care about them.
Is the reason those people stood up yesterday, you know.
And I just think I just keep thinking about as like,
always face the thing you're terrified of, you know, because
it might be your destruction, but it might be the
making of you.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Also, this book comes from such a place of love.
Does it matter who loves us? When we talk about
these characters, as you say, who meant something to you
growing up as a child who was so important in
your life. Who the most of us would stand back
and go, oh, one of the most notorious criminals in
Queensland was your stepfather.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Yeah, it's a thing. I'm sure so many kids across
New Zealand are going through it. I've got this person
in my life that I care about deeply, but on paper,
that person's a rogue or on paper people you know.
I had it from teachers at school. No one gave
a damn about my parents, you know, and I was
always trying to tell them, no, they're actually amazing, Like
it's just that they don't come up here enough and
(19:16):
you don't get to know them enough because well, dad's
drink and offer or whatever. But it's like I loved
them deal and I thought they were incredible, and it's
it's such a beautiful thing, you say. You know, a
kid will take love wherever that kid can get it,
and you can get it from a book, or you
can get it from your favorite rock star, and you
can get it from a guy who's a heroin dealer.
(19:36):
Like that's that's truth. And and I sort of almost
I don't want to glorify any of that world in
my writing or in my words. But it's true. I've
found love, great love from those people.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Boy Swallows Universe. About fifty percent of that novel is.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
True, is based on your childhood.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
What did sharing that story, writing about that do for you,
because yesterday you spoke about how we should all write
more to deal with the monsters in our nightmares.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
Ah, well, the biggest thing I realized now, Francesca, I've
honestly this is all in hind is. I'm only a
realization I've made in the past couple of weeks. You know,
for twenty years, I had these terrible dreams about this
guy who was in boyceul As Universe. There's this character Teddy.
It's just a brief bit in my book, and I
don't talk about the real about seven years or so
(20:28):
that my mum lived with this guy who was just horrendous,
the worst kind of Ossi mail and the kind of
Ossie mail that is causing a bit of an epidemic
in our country of domestic violence, that type of male.
And I up until I was dad, I was like
a father of two girls, and this guy would come
(20:48):
to me in my dreams. You know, is long ago
that guy got out of our lives in the late
nineties because well, my three older brothers and I went
and saved my mum from this guy, because we've grown
up by then and we were tough enough to kind
of rench her away from this guy. But the guy
doesn't leave your head. And I realized I spent from
(21:09):
the age of thirty eight, I'm forty four now. I realized,
I've spent six years writing books about this guy. He's
He's the villain in three fiction books like right from
Boy Absolutely to All Ashroimks Guys to Loller in the Mirror.
I keep writing about this guy. And you know, I
made this profound kind of realization only about a couple
of weeks ago, that the guy isn't in my dreams anymore.
(21:32):
He doesn't, he doesn't come. I used to have dreams
where I'd be hopping in a car and I'd turn
to my left and he's sitting in the car, and
I want to like, I want to kill the guy.
It's weird in the dream. I always want to kill
the guy. And I realized that I wrote three books,
and and it was through those books that I killed him.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Used to say as a thirteen year I'm going to
collect guy, and your three older brothers used to sort
of laugh at you and go, dude.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Oh as if no, because I was I was like
the it's all in Boycewaller's universe. I was total water
works and I still am. And if anyone was going
to do that bad job, might be my one of
my three beautiful, incredibly strong older brothers. And they would
laugh at me. And but here's the beautiful theme, my
brother Ben. It was. It was at a it was
(22:17):
a quarter of It was a quarter final where the
Broncos had played your beloved Auckland Warriors and we'd had
a win, and Ben had were sitting down afterwards and
we're talking about this guy and we both realized we
both killed him. You know, Ben did it by becoming
the beautiful father that he is and the beautiful, working,
amazing man. He runs a bloody organization with four hundred
people and gets me very proud and like, you know
(22:39):
what I mean, you don't you can you can build
your own swords, you know when.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
You do consider your childhood. You know, all new boys,
it turned out good? I mean, was there a point
where it could have gone differently?
Speaker 6 (22:52):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (22:52):
That's that's why I write these books. I think I
write these books for that working on that notion Francesca
like that, that idea that you are walking walking a
knife edge, And you know, I was pretty dark by
around sixteen seventeen. Honestly, that kid in Boycewaller's universe is
so me, Like Eli Bell in that book and that
(23:14):
TV show is absolutely me. He's an absolute avatar for me,
and I really own that now. But he was the
best version of me as a kid. And I really
liked myself at twelve, Like I didn't hurt anyone at twelve,
and I hadn't. I haven't, I hadn't done anything to
upset anyone, And in fact, it was the reverse I tried.
I was the one trying to make everybody okay. But
(23:34):
by sixteen or seventeen, reality kicked in and it was
just like, no, this world. I would look in the mirror.
I'd look in my sort of lifeline. Saint Vincent de
Paul donated mirror in this house and commission shoe box
that were growing up in. My dad was raising us
four boys on his own, and I'd look into that
mirror and I was just like, hated what I saw
(23:54):
in my future, My future self, because all I saw
was what was around me, which was basically I was
probably going to turn into a drunk, and that was
really attractive at that time. And then, because of whatever
reason I think, I had this English teacher named Shirley Adams, like, God,
bless any English teacher who's listening to this, because you
(24:15):
are saving lives. She said, I know you think it's
your job to be a smart alec all the time,
and I know it's probably because of the things I've
heard about where you're from, but I don't care about that.
What I care about is that, sir, I'm going to
get it. Most of I talk about Shirley Adams, but
it was like, what I care about is that you
wrote a pretty good English essay last night, and you
(24:39):
should take this further and that gets me a job
in journalism. And then on January ten, two thousand, I
meet this woman named Fiona Friendsman, and she's like the
wife I've had for the past twenty four years. And
suddenly I liked what I was seeing in the mirror.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And it's a theme in on your books that nobody
is invisible, but sometimes we just need those people to
remind us that we're not right next And look I
know that. I think there was one review with but
he criticized you for being a little bit too optimistic,
you know, not quite cynical enough maybe, But actually this
is one of the beautiful things about your books because
they all deal and cover very hard topics in difficult topics. Yeah,
(25:21):
but there is this hope that comes from it and
this respect for these flawed characters.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Is that forgetting there to say, Oh.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
Absolutely, I did the most After that session yesterday, I
had the absolute pleasure of going over to City Mission.
It's amazing this place called home Ground is it incredible? Oh?
You know, honestly, God bless Auckland. Like this is the
way ahead. Like we had a massive homeless problem in
Brisbane and right across Australia and it's like we've got
to think called Common Ground, it's a bit of a
(25:49):
sister project to Home Ground, and it's like that's how
we're going to solve it with amazing facilities to help
people not just find accommodation, but also find value and
and find hope. Yea, you know, these these sort of
words I cop a lot of criticism for, you know,
I'm just a firm believer in that stuff. And I
was sitting there telling these guys there's this writer's group
(26:11):
at home ground right, and they were just like, tell
us your story and tell us what makes you write.
And I was trying to tell I was tell them
about that that like, you know, if I ever get criticism,
and I've been pretty lucky, but I get the worst
kind if it comes. And it's always about this notion
of like almost essentially, how dare you write about people
who have fallen through the cracks in such a hopeful,
(26:33):
romantic way? And I'm like, are you kidding? That might
be the most insulting thing I've ever heard, to assume
that there is not love on the street, that there
is not laughter and hope and family in the cracks.
And I try and tell people it's like I write,
please don't mistake my optimism for naivity. I know full
(26:56):
well what I'm doing and I want you to know,
like I feel like calling people up and going, please
remember this comes that story. That one comes from my
mum line half dead at the bottom of a telstraphone box.
You know, that's where my optimism comes from. And the
fact she got back up again. You know, and it's
like for a lot of people who've been in the cracks,
(27:17):
it's they can't entertain the dark. They cannot safely entertain
the darkness, you know. And it's like you've got to
remember that, so so always remember to put your arms
around the bubbly people too, you know what I mean.
It's that thing of like, yeah, watch those sunshine people.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
How does your mum feel about so much of her
life in your childhood being in these books and on
TV series now?
Speaker 5 (27:37):
And it's yeah, it's it's awful. You know, it's terrible
for her, you know, And I think, but it's beautiful.
You know. It's also it's I think the reason she
just loves life. I think I think it's really I
think it's made her past five years and I think
she dreaded every second. But here's the thing about her, Francesca.
You know, she has to go into her boss and go.
(27:58):
So Mom's like brilliant. Now you know, she did ten
years as a traffic control like stop go woman. She
you know, leaves that guy. She should have finished as
psychology degree, but this guy didn't let her. You know,
she gets out of it. She builds her way back
the people of Brisbane furnish her home, you know what
I mean, Like gets a home so her boys can
go visit. And she gets a job at this place
called Budget Direct, you know, which is like an insurance
(28:21):
place in Australia, and you know, works there for twenty years,
and then she has to go into her boss and say, sorry, sorry, boss.
My son's written this book about the years in which
I was really in love with that massive heroin dealer
and I kind of went away for two years. And
this guy reads that book and you know, six months
later he comes in he goes, hey, I read that
book and I want you to know where we're more
(28:42):
proud of you than ever before. And so that's sort
of where she's at, and she'll probably listen to this.
She follows everything, She sees every comment, she sees every quote,
she reads every article, and well, I think I think
she got Okay, I'm going to get really emotionally, but
you know, I think she got up from that phone
(29:02):
box for this. I think that's why she stood up.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
List as well. You've been working for years as a
social affairs journalist. How has that also? I mean, obviously
you can see how that's broadened to these stories as well.
They might not be your story that you're telling, but
obviously that's influenced your writing a lot as well.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
I was everything I saw, you know, everything I saw
from zero to twenty. I got to explore from twenty
to forty as a journalist, and like everything I saw
at my school, you know, everything that was going on
with the kids at my school, or everything that was
going on in my street, you know, growing up, alcoholism, suicide,
you know, poverty. You know, I got to explore as
(29:41):
a journal and do it with actual, like real care,
like I actually really cared about it because I was
just trying to unpack my own stuff. How's a real
benefit to me? You know? I got this dear friend,
he said to me the other day, He goes, you know, Trent,
not all of us got to write books about it,
And I was like, wow, that's really interesting. Not all
of us got to be journals and do all that
(30:02):
with it, you know what I mean? Yeah, some of
us just have to go get like real, just normal
type jobs and then carry that stuff with us and
never process any of it. I got to go into
people's homes for three hours and sit in their living
rooms and go, hey, how are you processing that stuff?
It was very powerful.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
The world's changing so much at the moment, and we're seeing,
you know, the potential of AI in the future and
how it can change the world, and we're watching you know,
media industry struggle and things. And I stood the session
yesterday and I watched the reaction and the connection that
the audience had with you and your stories in your book,
and I thought, how can AI threaten this? You know
(30:39):
what I mean?
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, I mean, do you look, You've got a couple
of teenage kids and they're about to, you know, head
out into the world and things, and are you sitting
there having conversations with and going, well, the sensible thing
to study now would be.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
So, can I just say that there's a massive elephant
in this room. It's a happy elephant. It's your birthday.
Can I just acknowledge that because we're talking about kids before,
I just want to say the biggest happy birthday to
you from all of your amazing listeners.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
It's been a real birthday.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
I hope you have the best I hope a little bit. Sorry,
I just want to blow that open. But that's such
a good question I had, you know, Boycewallows Universe was
one of the books that got fed into AI. You know,
there was this list of and I found out from
a journal in Western Australia calls me up and they said,
do you know that your book was fed into the
AI system for what a novel is? You know, so
(31:29):
if you type into basically whatever chat GBT or something
and you go, you know, write me a novel, you know,
basically you know, boy Swallows Universe was one of the
thousands that you know it learned from. And I thought
that was hilarious because not only is that kind of
not even my story, that's my mum's story. That's they're
(31:49):
kind of stealing there. It's like my mum had to
live that, and then I had to live a bit
of it. My brothers had to live that story, you
know what I mean. And that's where that's where our
storytelling should always come from. It should always come from
the little stones we carry around in our bellies, you know.
And A I can never do that, and but yeah,
(32:09):
it's treacherous. And I've got a daughter who all she
wants to do is sing and play guitar, and I
just think, wow, you know, is there is there gonna
be a world where that is still incredibly valued. Thing.
Are the next people fifty years from now going to
value it as much as I value that that notion,
you know, because that stuff people who sing and play
(32:31):
guitar saved my life and and I personally think it's
one of the most important jobs in the world. And
I've told her that, but I've also told her, I
don't know if that's going to really pay your bills.
So I have said that thing of like that terrible
thing that a parent sort of sets, you know, maybe
think about education or or as you said, Francesca, commerce
(32:51):
and you like and you do you sort of go,
you know, but that's responsible parenting as well. But then
the part of me is just a kid.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
How can you not let them go and do what
they give it a whirl, what they love and the
patient about and.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Go for it, because because never get to never you
don't want to get to that place and go I didn't.
I didn't give it ten years of just going to
Prague and with my guitar. You know, it's like that's
that's living. And I hope she does.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Your or Can Writer's Festival session today is the craft
of making people care.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Do people care?
Speaker 6 (33:22):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (33:22):
They what?
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
They do?
Speaker 5 (33:25):
They do? They absolutely still do. Anyone who reads my
books care because my books are filled with such you know,
they're not the most beautifully written books, but they're filled
with such care. You know, like if there's anything I
can offer is my care. And I just yesterday showed
me that in spades, Like it was so you should have.
(33:46):
You were there, said I was there. It was like
I'm telling you, they all stood up because they care.
And people will never stop caring, you know. And it's
and it's so beautiful to live in, you know, a
world where you know, hope and care and compassion is
still burning bright, you know. And I said yesterday, there's
always someone who's going to want to make you cynical.
There's all someone and you just got to fight that.
(34:08):
You just got to fight him. You've got to fight
him with your smile.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Trent Dalton, thank you so much for coming it and
making my birthday hi very sad, very much.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
This has been beautiful.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Thank you for bringing you the best interviews from the
Sunday session. Great chats with Francesca Rudkin on iHeartRadio Empowered
by News Talks at b.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
That was Trent Dalton. That show was on my birthday.
Have you really made my day? If you have to
work on your birthday, you want someone hopeful around like Trent,
you have to turn another year older. He really is
a beautiful man. If you haven't already, I recommend picking
up one of Trent's books. And now we head to
Hollywood and my next guest is also very down to
(34:49):
earth and open, but has had an extraordinary career. Actress
Diane Krueger made a name for herself starring in Quentin
Tarantino's and Glorious Bastards, Troy National Treasure, and her latest
film is Dreiker, directed by Kiwi director James Napier Robinson.
It's based on the story of the b Lorena Joy Womack.
The conversation began with Diane telling me what drew her
(35:12):
to the character and the story.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
Well, I've always loved the ballet. I was a ballet
dancer myself from a very young agehn not as talented
obviously as Joka is, but I've just and to this day,
you know, I just enjoy watching the ballet. I love
the discipline, the gracefulness, the music and.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
To play you know, a teacher.
Speaker 6 (35:41):
At the Bullshoy, which to this day is considered the
highest form of ballet and the highest academy to be
able to get into.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Was just wonderful.
Speaker 6 (35:52):
And also, you know, the movie is based on a
true story that always draws me in.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
I find that fascinating.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, what was it like to be back in the
dance studio.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
It was great. It was a little trading as well.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
I don't do a lot of dancing myself, and obviously
I'm way too old to be really as flexible as
I once was. But just you know, I love the
atmosphere of a ballet's studio. I love seeing the girls
do their exercises. You know, I'm still obviously able to
see who does well, who's struggling in certain areas. You know,
(36:31):
it's it all comes back to you, and yeah, I
just remember I have good memories of that time in
my life.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
While you say that you weren't as talented as Joika,
I mean you did take it very seriously. We should
explain to people that you trained at the Royal Academy
in London. I mean, this is what you did think
you were going to do with your life right, Yes.
Speaker 6 (36:52):
To a certain extent. I was very young, you know,
I was a child, and I would go there on
my vacations, you know, to do dance camp. I guess
in a way, I did take it very seriously. I
did train every single day. But you know, for me,
there was this turning point where it did not become
(37:12):
fun anymore. Once I sort of hit puberty and my
body started to change and I was falling behind.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
I had a knee injury.
Speaker 6 (37:25):
Which kind of took me out for many months, and
then just the pain of coming back and trying to
regain all that flexibility was just torture to me. So
it became not fun, you know, And I just I
guess I didn't see myself ever trying to dance in
the back of the of the stage.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I'm going to be honest. Watching Joika's journey, it didn't
look a lot like a lot of fun either. Diane, Yeah,
I mean it is.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
It is the for those girls, you know.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
I think it's that intoxicating mixture of pleasure, the pleasure
of dancing. There is this a little bit perverse, I'd say,
pleasure of overcoming pain and overcoming personal limitations that you
think you have. You know, I think any athlete might
(38:19):
feel the same way.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
And it is a community, you.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
Know, it is a little bubble of community. And that's
what I remember the most, was feeling part of you know,
a mutual goal, a mutual ambition. I do have mostly
great memories of that.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Time because I think with this film you do question
that desire to sacrifice everything to achieve. Yeah, you want
to achieve, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 6 (38:51):
Because it's it's It's also set in Russia, right, so
I think the Bolshoy there's not a lot of room for.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
For enjoyment or excess, I guess, and it's quite political.
Speaker 6 (39:07):
I will say that the ballet world in general is
very competitive and very cutthroat, not just in Russia. So
I do think when you when you do get to
a certain level, to push through that last door, I
think in any academy around the world is very difficult
and tedious.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Well, how wonderful being an actor and been able to
step back into the dance studio and into that world again.
You very much looked you know, you absolutely were the
right person for this job. You looked so comfortable. I
absolutely bel did. I had little kind of flashbacks to
my childhood and dance teachers as well.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
She is strict, so many of them are.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
So after the knee and obviously and the torture of
sort of if we dance got to you and things,
was it kind of a natural progression to go, Okay, well,
what else is there that I where I can express
the and represent sort of human experiences? Was acting sort
of the obvious next step for you?
Speaker 4 (40:14):
No, it kind of wasn't. You know.
Speaker 6 (40:16):
I don't come from an artistic family at all, and
from a very small place in Germany, so that part
was not really encouraged. I kind of fell into ballet
because it was an after school activity and.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
You know, we didn't have an any kind of thing,
so that was.
Speaker 6 (40:36):
A thing for my mom to have an hour and
a half to, I don't know, go buy groceries.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
You know.
Speaker 6 (40:42):
It was now when I look back as an adult,
you know, it was very much an outlet of.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Anger, anxiety, joy. You know.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
It was a place I felt validated and seen, you know,
and performing even though I had terrible stage fright. But
very early on I got that sense of being you know,
rewarded for hard work that I put into you know,
and at the same time, I was taking seriously at something.
(41:14):
So when that ended, for many years, actually I felt
I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
I went back to school, obviously, and.
Speaker 6 (41:26):
Yeah, it was a very confusing time in my life
because I didn't see myself as being you know, a
great academic going to university and you know, becoming I
don't know, a lawyer, or I didn't see myself getting
married and having children. You know, I was staying staying
back home. So modeling came around. Somebody saw me in
(41:50):
the streets and had sent in a picture to this
modeling contest, which weirdly, you know, ended up working out
for me, and that kind of brought me to Paris,
and that was really fun for a while because it
allowed me to be financially independent for the first time
in my life, you know, which is not to be underestimated.
I felt like a grown up even though I was,
(42:11):
you know, barely sixteen.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
And then I think by the.
Speaker 6 (42:15):
Time I was around nineteen twenty, I found that to
be not enough.
Speaker 4 (42:20):
You know.
Speaker 6 (42:20):
I just felt like it was becoming a little repetitive.
And also I really didn't like being judged on my exterior.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
After a while, you know.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
It becomes the pursuit of perfection became a little tiresome.
So I met a boy in Paris who was an actor,
and he told me about acting school, that you could
do that, and so I went to acting school. And
that's kind of when I felt, oh, okay, I belong here,
I could there's something here that I can do.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
And that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
When you say you met a boy and he told
you you could go to acting school, Is it not
something that you'd sort of you knew about. Actually were
sort of a way that you could do.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
You could train to be an actor.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
No, really, I had no idea you could train to
become an actor. I thought you had to live like
in a big town and you had to be discovered
and put in a movie, you know, just like modeling.
Kind of happened to me, Like I had zero clue
that there were acting schools. Also, my mother would have
never It's not something that would have been on the table.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Coming back to Joika, how did you become connected to
this project?
Speaker 6 (43:30):
It kind of came to me, you know, I by
just one day got that call, you know, they would
like to meet you over zoom same thing, very very
early for you, very late for me. And James and
I just connected and I loved the story naturally, and
so yeah, it kind of happened naturally like that.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Did you enjoy working with New Zealand director James Napier Robinson.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Yeah, he was awesome. He's just he was you know.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
I kept asking him like, why do you want to
make a movie about girls dancing?
Speaker 4 (44:05):
You know, ballet like?
Speaker 6 (44:08):
And he was just so he was passionate about the subject,
you know, having met the real joker and he was so.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
Into it. And so you know, open.
Speaker 6 (44:21):
To the female I guess gays and the female dam
as you would say in French.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
You know, my guest is actress Diane Krueger. You've worked
with some major directors and alongside some major stars. How
different are those experiences? Are there similarities to being on
a set shooting a film or is it different depending
on the personalities in their style of working.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Yeah, I would say that.
Speaker 6 (44:52):
The main difficulty for an actor is to mold yourself
to a director's vision. Right. Every director is very very
different and likes to work in very different ways, some
that you don't necessarily correspond to and that you find
not productive.
Speaker 4 (45:11):
At all.
Speaker 6 (45:12):
You know, some directors loved over hers and go over
and over and over the dialogue. Others don't do that,
you know, so it's very I find that I still
find that the hardest part about being an actor. You know,
the work itself is the same, it's just how do
you fit into the universe of that particular director.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
How has the industry changed since you started out acting?
To me, you're an actress who has chosen characters with
depth and something to say. You've played such a broad range.
You've been able to cross between the blockbuster to the
indie without being stereotyped. Is it easier these days the
women to get grittier roles.
Speaker 6 (45:59):
That's a very difficult question to answer because I mean,
while I think with you know, the arrival of the
streamers like Netflix and all those you know, Amazon, all
those different streamers, I think there's more work.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
You know, traditionally women have.
Speaker 6 (46:16):
The opportunity to have better parts and more lead roles
on television or on streamers. Also women of certain you know,
older women. I think it's changed in the way that
the studios in America anyways tend to make films for
you know, teenagers and young adults, and they're those big blockbusters.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
They often cast unknowns because they.
Speaker 6 (46:41):
Don't want to, you know, pay someone who's very established
or they you know, it's the franchise that's important. Almost
It's like it doesn't really matter, you know, who's in it,
or so they think. And those middle ground films, you know,
in a way like Joika, they don't exist very much anymore.
(47:04):
Also because audiences, older audiences don't go to movies as much.
I think, you know, I blame myself, you know. Ever
since I've become a mom, I watch everything on TV
at home, you know, not necessarily TV movies, but like
I buy a movie and I watch it at home.
So things changed, for sure. I do think there's a
(47:25):
lot of I mean, I've never been busier, let's put
it out. I've never been busier now than when I was,
you know, my twenties.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
And look touching on becoming a mother, it is actually
Mother's Day here in New Zealand. So can I just
finish by asking you how has motherhood changed your life?
Speaker 6 (47:45):
A first of all, happy Mother's Day and to you
if you've all indeed them all, I don't know, but.
Speaker 8 (47:52):
It's changed it, you know, in every possible way, which
it should. It's definitely full on and it's the best
thing ever. But it also, you know, it made me
a better person, a less compromisable person in many ways
when it comes to work. You know, I think I
love what I do, and I don't get to do
(48:12):
it as often as I used to, but when I do,
I feel like I'm two hundred percent committed because it
is so much organization, you.
Speaker 6 (48:21):
Know, to make it all happen. But I you know,
I love it. It's it's I can't wait to come
home every day to see my kid.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
The best guest from the Sunday session Great Jazz with
Francesca rud Get on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks, It'd.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
Be that was the lovely Dayane Krueger, who much like
Mary and Keys, took a very relaxed approach to the interview.
She had her video on. She was just kind of
slouched against a wall, sitting on the floor and a
T shirt, looking terribly glamorous. And I thought to myself,
if it was if I was doing that, someone will
probably ask if I was okay. They presume that I'd
sort of slipped down the wall. Anyway, very relaxed and
(49:02):
casual and fabulous to mate. Thank you so much for
joining me on this News Talks AIRB podcast. Please feel
free to share these chats. If you like this podcast,
make sure you follow us on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts. And don't forget we are releasing new
podcasts on Mondays and Fridays over summer.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks The B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks EDB. The big names, the fascinating guests,
the thoughtful conversations, bringing you the best interviews from the
Sunday Session. This is Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin, powered
(00:27):
by News Talks EDB.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hi and welcome to the summer edition of Great Chats.
I'm Francesca Rudkin and in this podcast, we're bringing some
of the best feature interviews from the Sunday Session on
news Talks EDB. Throughout twenty twenty four, Irish author Marian
Keys released her sixteenth novel And twenty twenty four and
she joined me to talk about why her books resonate
with people, why people crave love stories, and the impact
(00:51):
of quitting alcohol on her career. I started by asking
her about the specific agenda she had when it came
to writing her latest book, My Final Mistake.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yes, I had planned to write a book about tricky people,
difficult people, and when it came to doing it, I
started about two years ago. We were just coming out
of the pandemic and Russia had just invaded Ukraine and
I thought I can't I can't write about people I'm
afraid of, and I thought I would like to write
(01:24):
a love story, because a love story is what I
want to read, and I kind of I always write
for myself, but I wanted to write a love story
about people who are not nineteen, you know, or even
twenty seven. I wanted people in middle age. And I
want to write about two characters who had had several
near misses over the course of twenty years, and they've
(01:49):
hurt each other like you know, as human beings do
to each other, and now they've ended up in the
same place in the West of Ireland, and they're having
to work together. And I was interested in how how
we deal with relationships when we met a person from
we were much younger, and that kind of picture of
(02:09):
who they are has crystallized in our head and we
have to realize they've changed. And also I was very
interested in the idea of well, this came up a
lot for me during lockdown of the things that I
had done when I was younger that I really regretted,
you know, things that I made decisions at the time
that I thought were the best, but with retrospect, I
(02:33):
realized that they were. I could have been kinder, I
could have been more honest, I could have handled things
with more compassion. And that is also part I think
of like a long you know, a long relationship, you
hurt a person, but you wouldn't do it now.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
So there was a lot.
Speaker 3 (02:54):
There's yelts, there's regret, there's longing, there's love, you know,
but it's all very parochial, if you get me. I
wanted to keep the outside world out of this. I
just wanted to be about human relationships, friendships, romances, family, community.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
It's interesting you say that you were writing what you
needed at that moment, but actually I think that that
was a very universal feeling, isn't it.
Speaker 4 (03:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Yeah, I've subsequently discovered that, like people are craving love stories,
you know, because like what we read goes through sort
of phases, and you know, I mean I still read
a lot of crime because I know it sounds weird,
but like everything gets sorted out in a crime novel,
well usually, and the same with love stories. You know,
(03:50):
things get fixed, there is a happy ending of sorts.
And you know, even before I had started throughout this,
I'd been reading an awful lot of especially enemies, enemies
to lovers just were they were doing it for me.
And then when Curtis Sittingfeld wrote her book Romantic Comedy,
it was like, hooray, we have the stamp of approval.
(04:11):
If somebody is amazing as her is writing a I mean,
obviously she could never write anything that was cliched, but
the trope, the trope is a familiar one, and if
it's okay by her, then it's okay for the rest
of us to write it also. And you have the comfort,
Like that's all I'm longing for is comfortable reads that
(04:35):
keep the world at bay because the word is kind
of sharp and pointy right now.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
We shouldn't be snobby about what we read though, should wait,
we should just help just Brice going, I need a
bit of that, I need a bit of this. I
love Romantic her book as well, Curtis's book as well,
But it did kind of take me by surprise.
Speaker 3 (04:55):
Isn't it interesting?
Speaker 5 (04:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Because I will always defend the genre and say there's
so much more to it, you know, than people give
the credit for. And I also say that people should
read whatever they want. But then when it comes to
kind of defending our own work, it is a bit Oh,
I don't know if I have the right to do this,
which is nonsense.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
Of course, Am I correct that when you were studying
law you used to read Mills and Boons books in
the week.
Speaker 3 (05:21):
Yes, yes, yeah, I mean absolutely, like I'd spend the week,
you know, learning about oh, you know, court cases and
laws and accent the history of law. And then my
tweet on a Saturday afternoon was to stay in bed
and read one or two Mills and Boons. My mother
(05:41):
was always getting them from the library, and they helped
me so much. You know, it was light relief. It
took my head into a place where, like I knew
it was going to be okay. My worry was gone.
I didn't have to worry about whatever had been worrying about,
you know, about what I had learned or not learned
more to the point during the week.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Yeah, it was such a.
Speaker 2 (06:04):
Pleasure, embrace the guilty pleasure the world.
Speaker 3 (06:08):
Well we must call it a guilty pleasure.
Speaker 4 (06:11):
Yes, it's pleasure.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
No, no, no, it's just a pleasure exactly.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Fair call the Welsh family. They really do keep delivering,
don't they. Your first even novel featured the Welsh family,
And now this is I think book number eight, which features.
Speaker 3 (06:27):
It, is it is?
Speaker 4 (06:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
I mean I don't want to kind of scare away
people who've never read any of them, because they are
all standalone. Like I've written about Anna in one other book,
but it was a long time ago and her life
is very different now. But the dynamic of a big, loud,
messy Irish family is something that I am very familiar
with and that I really value, and I love bringing
(06:52):
that to each subsequent Welsh novel. Even though this is
Anna's story, the rest of them also all show up.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Is it your love of the family that keeps you
writing about them? Or is it reader demand?
Speaker 4 (07:08):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (07:08):
I mean, okay, I know this sounds arrogant, and I
really don't mean it to be that way, but I
can only write what I want to write. I think
any writer who kind of tries to anticipate what readers
wants is doing everyone a disservice. Any writer who tries
to write what they think a market wants from them,
(07:32):
Oh well, I can't. I can only speak to myself.
I couldn't do it.
Speaker 6 (07:35):
No.
Speaker 3 (07:35):
I I am very very connected to my own family.
I have four siblings. My dad died five years ago,
but my mother is still the most powerful woman on
the planet. She is this tiny little matriarch. We are
all terrified of her. I have nieces, I have nephews,
My siblings have spouses. I like us all to be together,
(08:00):
and I kind of feel uncomfortable if one of us
is missing, when there's only seventeen of us instead of eighteen.
I am almost fetishistic in my love of family. So
I love writing about families. I love writing about Oh,
you know, the way we're giving our identity within a family,
and that remains unchanged. You know, you get it very
(08:23):
early on, and like, I'm sixty now and I'm still
that person. You know, I'm the I'm the I'm the
bossy one, I'm the I'm the martyr, I'm the clipboard
person who gets very angry if everyone is late.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
You know, we all have.
Speaker 3 (08:41):
Our roles to play, and we sort of slip into
them with each other, but we are We're more than
the roles we give each other. But yeah, I love
I love families. I love books about them. I love
being in one.
Speaker 2 (08:53):
I did giggle when I read that your mother called
her books philth She she received Woman Has, She received
a copy of the lightest book is, she reported Beck,
who thoughts it.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yes, yes, she said, and you'll know what I'm well,
people will know what I'm talking about when they've read
that X changed an awful lot and became a much
better person. And she also said it was very funny,
which I appreciated. I mean, she is the great withholder
of praise. She didn't actually say the magic words good girl, Marion,
(09:28):
but I like to think it was implied.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
Oh wonderful. You record the audio books yourself. Do you
enjoy doing that?
Speaker 4 (09:39):
Yes? I love it.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I've only started. This is just the third novel I've
done in all these years, because I tried a long
time ago with nonfiction and the technology was it basically
if your stomach rumbled, you lost the morning's work. But
it's all different now. And the only thing that I
find horrific is saying the sex scenes, because it's a
(10:04):
very intimate thing recording an audio Like it's just me
and Roy the my producer, my sound engineer, my director,
and like it's just me and him in this kind
of very dark it's dark and sound proved space. But
he's just really good at sort of he laughs, you know,
(10:25):
he makes me laugh. But even saying the words out
loud are kind of hard, and then I'm thinking, oh,
why why did I.
Speaker 5 (10:33):
Why did I write this?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (10:36):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
I can.
Speaker 4 (10:38):
I can just imagine.
Speaker 2 (10:40):
Your latest, your last book, the twenty twenty book grobbn
Ups that has been picked up by Netflix, which is
very exciting because I can I can just see this
as a television series. Are you excited about that or
is it a bit hard to kind of hand it
over to a different medium and allow them to kind
of take it and give it a different life.
Speaker 3 (11:03):
I'm really excited, Francesca.
Speaker 4 (11:05):
I'm really really excited, and I.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Don't mind at all handing it over because I know
nothing about that world, and I'm really kind of curious
to see who they'll cast. There's there was a very
handsome young man in the book called Ferdia. There's been
great excitement about who's going to get cast as Furdia.
(11:27):
It's a really lovely I mean, it's a wonderful thing
to happen, and it's not something that brings me any
anxiety at all. It's just utter delight and real pride.
Like I'm really honored by this, and I feel the
people the production company seesaw they made they made Nine
(11:49):
Perfect Strangers, one of the Leanne Mariarty books, and they
also they also made Slow Horses. I don't know if you.
Speaker 7 (11:58):
Oh my god, it's the best, isn't it? The utter
and complete best? So I have so much faith in them.
And they're going to film in Ireland, which I'm also
thrilled about. So yeah, it's all lovely.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
You were also honored recently by having a portrait painted,
which now hangs in the National Art Gallery, which is
it's a beautiful portrait. Were you happy with that?
Speaker 3 (12:23):
Yeah? Again, I had no expectations. I mean I was
really surprised when they asked me. And I also felt
that like the artist had to portray me however she
saw me. So I didn't want to see any of
the work in progress because I didn't want to try
and influence it, because if I looked horrific, I mean
(12:45):
obviously I would be like on my knees pleading with her,
you know, to fix me, fix me, you know, give
me the give me the makeover, give me a blow up.
And so I was braced to look like you know,
the Francis Bacon portraits that he did, Yes, like you know,
call me a phillistine all you're like, but I would
not call them flattering or you see, I have a
(13:07):
really asymmetrical face, So I mean, I think at the
best of times, I look like something from Picasso's Cubist period.
And I was prepared to kind of look at myself
and flint, but I was I was just thrilled, Like
it's really not only do I look nice in it,
but I feel like she got me. You know that
(13:30):
there's a look in the eyes that I recognize of
kind of, oh, this means mischief. You know that I'm
trying to be serious, but I'm planning to say something
inappropriate at annie second. The whole thing it was, it
was just really I felt like, oh, I felt sort
(13:53):
of like I have nothing left to prove if they're
giving me this honor, Like it was a wonderful, wonderful thing.
Speaker 2 (14:02):
I mean, it is a very big honor, and it's
it's a as you say, you've had this thirty year career,
you are a national treasure and alan and yet I
saw a photo of you get the hard copy of
your latest book, and you looked as I've joyed and
thrilled and grateful as you probably did when you got
(14:24):
your first book. It was really lovely to say you
don't take any of this for granted, right.
Speaker 3 (14:30):
Oh, Like, I absolutely don't. I mean, I just say
a couple of things. I mean, you in New Zealand
have been very very good to me, and many of
you will know that, Like, thirty years ago, I was
miird and alcoholic drinking and I had just come out
of rehab. And I so often think about what just
(14:53):
how lucky I've been, just how incredibly fortunate I've been,
you know, to be able to stop drinking, and like
I was given so much help, and that everything that
has happened to me is completely be a beyond what
I could have imagined for myself. And I think, I mean,
I do think it's important to stay grateful. But it's
(15:15):
easy to stay grateful because I mean, I'm in London
at the moment, and that was where I did the
worst of my drinking. Every time I'm here, like, I'm
happy to be here because it reminds me of you know,
there's a parallel version, there's a ghost version of me
walking the streets living a very different life, and the
fact that I'm I felt so worthless and now that
(15:36):
I'm allowed to write books that I enjoy writing and
that I feel proud of and that other people enjoy reading.
I just that is good fortune. I don't even have
the words for it. How grateful and thrilled I am.
And with every book that I write, I think, Okay,
this is the one where it just you know, the
(15:57):
wheels come off. I won't be able to finish it,
and I'll just you know, I will disappear into egno me.
So the fact that I got a finished copy, you
know that I manage to finish it, and they agreed
to publish it. It's you know, I am so blessed.
I am so fortunate, and I know it.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
The biggest names from the Sunday session great chats with
Bran Jeska Rudkin on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks at
B That.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Was the wonderful Marion Keys. So delightful. Right, Marion is
one of Ireland's most successful authors, which's a national treasure.
But what struck we were interviewing her was how humble
she was. She even flicked the zoom camera on and
she showed me how she was doing the interview, which
was from her bed. So I got to see the
whole room. She showed me the whole room and there
(16:45):
she is lying in bed, just delightful. Another one of
my favorite guests on the Sunday Session this year was
acclaimed Ozzie author Trent Dalton, author of Boyce Swallows, Universe,
Love Stories and Lola in the Mirror. Trent attended the
Auckland Writers' Festival in May and received a standing ovation
after his session. So I started off by gratulating him
(17:07):
on his festival appearance and asking him what it meant
to him. Congratulations for yesterday, because I don't I can't
recall seeing a standing ovation in a filled theater at
Auckland Writer's Festival. But what a response. How did that
feel to know that your stories mean so much to people?
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Oh, Francesco, I've been thinking about it. I went back
to my hotel and I was just shaking my head.
My editor over in Australia couldn't believe it. She saw
it all on Instagram and she's like, what's going on
over there?
Speaker 2 (17:36):
What did you say?
Speaker 5 (17:37):
What did you say? And it was so beautiful and
I just I kind of said it yesterday. It was
this idea that when I have incredibly inspiring moments like that,
And thank you Auckland, by the way, like for just
being so kind to me. But I really think of
the great fear, you know, the great fear that I
had in writing about that stuff that you introed with.
(17:58):
You know, I was so terrified about telling the world
why I love my family. Francesca, like, how how silly
is that, you know? And and when those people stood
up yesterday, I'm just like started thinking about my mom
and my dad. My dad is not around anymore. And
this guy that you're saying who went to you know,
this drug dealer guy who was kind of like, you know,
a real, very real father figure to me. I just
(18:21):
like thank those people because it was talking about them
and trying to tell the world why I care about them.
Is the reason those people stood up yesterday, you know.
And I just think I just keep thinking about as like,
always face the thing you're terrified of, you know, because
it might be your destruction, but it might be the
making of you.
Speaker 2 (18:37):
Also, this book comes from such a place of love.
Does it matter who loves us? When we talk about
these characters, as you say, who meant something to you
growing up as a child who was so important in
your life. Who the most of us would stand back
and go, oh, one of the most notorious criminals in
Queensland was your stepfather.
Speaker 6 (18:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (18:55):
Yeah, it's a thing. I'm sure so many kids across
New Zealand are going through it. I've got this person
in my life that I care about deeply, but on paper,
that person's a rogue or on paper people you know.
I had it from teachers at school. No one gave
a damn about my parents, you know, and I was
always trying to tell them, no, they're actually amazing, Like
it's just that they don't come up here enough and
(19:16):
you don't get to know them enough because well, dad's
drink and offer or whatever. But it's like I loved
them deal and I thought they were incredible, and it's
it's such a beautiful thing, you say. You know, a
kid will take love wherever that kid can get it,
and you can get it from a book, or you
can get it from your favorite rock star, and you
can get it from a guy who's a heroin dealer.
(19:36):
Like that's that's truth. And and I sort of almost
I don't want to glorify any of that world in
my writing or in my words. But it's true. I've
found love, great love from those people.
Speaker 2 (19:47):
Boy Swallows Universe. About fifty percent of that novel is.
Speaker 5 (19:51):
True, is based on your childhood.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
What did sharing that story, writing about that do for you,
because yesterday you spoke about how we should all write
more to deal with the monsters in our nightmares.
Speaker 5 (20:06):
Ah, well, the biggest thing I realized now, Francesca, I've
honestly this is all in hind is. I'm only a
realization I've made in the past couple of weeks. You know,
for twenty years, I had these terrible dreams about this
guy who was in boyceul As Universe. There's this character Teddy.
It's just a brief bit in my book, and I
don't talk about the real about seven years or so
(20:28):
that my mum lived with this guy who was just horrendous,
the worst kind of Ossi mail and the kind of
Ossie mail that is causing a bit of an epidemic
in our country of domestic violence, that type of male.
And I up until I was dad, I was like
a father of two girls, and this guy would come
(20:48):
to me in my dreams. You know, is long ago
that guy got out of our lives in the late
nineties because well, my three older brothers and I went
and saved my mum from this guy, because we've grown
up by then and we were tough enough to kind
of rench her away from this guy. But the guy
doesn't leave your head. And I realized I spent from
(21:09):
the age of thirty eight, I'm forty four now. I realized,
I've spent six years writing books about this guy. He's
He's the villain in three fiction books like right from
Boy Absolutely to All Ashroimks Guys to Loller in the Mirror.
I keep writing about this guy. And you know, I
made this profound kind of realization only about a couple
of weeks ago, that the guy isn't in my dreams anymore.
(21:32):
He doesn't, he doesn't come. I used to have dreams
where I'd be hopping in a car and I'd turn
to my left and he's sitting in the car, and
I want to like, I want to kill the guy.
It's weird in the dream. I always want to kill
the guy. And I realized that I wrote three books,
and and it was through those books that I killed him.
Speaker 2 (21:51):
Used to say as a thirteen year I'm going to
collect guy, and your three older brothers used to sort
of laugh at you and go, dude.
Speaker 5 (21:56):
Oh as if no, because I was I was like
the it's all in Boycewaller's universe. I was total water
works and I still am. And if anyone was going
to do that bad job, might be my one of
my three beautiful, incredibly strong older brothers. And they would
laugh at me. And but here's the beautiful theme, my
brother Ben. It was. It was at a it was
(22:17):
a quarter of It was a quarter final where the
Broncos had played your beloved Auckland Warriors and we'd had
a win, and Ben had were sitting down afterwards and
we're talking about this guy and we both realized we
both killed him. You know, Ben did it by becoming
the beautiful father that he is and the beautiful, working,
amazing man. He runs a bloody organization with four hundred
people and gets me very proud and like, you know
(22:39):
what I mean, you don't you can you can build
your own swords, you know when.
Speaker 2 (22:43):
You do consider your childhood. You know, all new boys,
it turned out good? I mean, was there a point
where it could have gone differently?
Speaker 6 (22:52):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (22:52):
That's that's why I write these books. I think I
write these books for that working on that notion Francesca
like that, that idea that you are walking walking a
knife edge, And you know, I was pretty dark by
around sixteen seventeen. Honestly, that kid in Boycewaller's universe is
so me, Like Eli Bell in that book and that
(23:14):
TV show is absolutely me. He's an absolute avatar for me,
and I really own that now. But he was the
best version of me as a kid. And I really
liked myself at twelve, Like I didn't hurt anyone at twelve,
and I hadn't. I haven't, I hadn't done anything to
upset anyone, And in fact, it was the reverse I tried.
I was the one trying to make everybody okay. But
(23:34):
by sixteen or seventeen, reality kicked in and it was
just like, no, this world. I would look in the mirror.
I'd look in my sort of lifeline. Saint Vincent de
Paul donated mirror in this house and commission shoe box
that were growing up in. My dad was raising us
four boys on his own, and I'd look into that
mirror and I was just like, hated what I saw
(23:54):
in my future, My future self, because all I saw
was what was around me, which was basically I was
probably going to turn into a drunk, and that was
really attractive at that time. And then, because of whatever
reason I think, I had this English teacher named Shirley Adams, like, God,
bless any English teacher who's listening to this, because you
(24:15):
are saving lives. She said, I know you think it's
your job to be a smart alec all the time,
and I know it's probably because of the things I've
heard about where you're from, but I don't care about that.
What I care about is that, sir, I'm going to
get it. Most of I talk about Shirley Adams, but
it was like, what I care about is that you
wrote a pretty good English essay last night, and you
(24:39):
should take this further and that gets me a job
in journalism. And then on January ten, two thousand, I
meet this woman named Fiona Friendsman, and she's like the
wife I've had for the past twenty four years. And
suddenly I liked what I was seeing in the mirror.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
And it's a theme in on your books that nobody
is invisible, but sometimes we just need those people to
remind us that we're not right next And look I
know that. I think there was one review with but
he criticized you for being a little bit too optimistic,
you know, not quite cynical enough maybe, But actually this
is one of the beautiful things about your books because
they all deal and cover very hard topics in difficult topics. Yeah,
(25:21):
but there is this hope that comes from it and
this respect for these flawed characters.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Is that forgetting there to say, Oh.
Speaker 5 (25:29):
Absolutely, I did the most After that session yesterday, I
had the absolute pleasure of going over to City Mission.
It's amazing this place called home Ground is it incredible? Oh?
You know, honestly, God bless Auckland. Like this is the
way ahead. Like we had a massive homeless problem in
Brisbane and right across Australia and it's like we've got
to think called Common Ground, it's a bit of a
(25:49):
sister project to Home Ground, and it's like that's how
we're going to solve it with amazing facilities to help
people not just find accommodation, but also find value and
and find hope. Yea, you know, these these sort of
words I cop a lot of criticism for, you know,
I'm just a firm believer in that stuff. And I
was sitting there telling these guys there's this writer's group
(26:11):
at home ground right, and they were just like, tell
us your story and tell us what makes you write.
And I was trying to tell I was tell them
about that that like, you know, if I ever get criticism,
and I've been pretty lucky, but I get the worst
kind if it comes. And it's always about this notion
of like almost essentially, how dare you write about people
who have fallen through the cracks in such a hopeful,
(26:33):
romantic way? And I'm like, are you kidding? That might
be the most insulting thing I've ever heard, to assume
that there is not love on the street, that there
is not laughter and hope and family in the cracks.
And I try and tell people it's like I write,
please don't mistake my optimism for naivity. I know full
(26:56):
well what I'm doing and I want you to know,
like I feel like calling people up and going, please
remember this comes that story. That one comes from my
mum line half dead at the bottom of a telstraphone box.
You know, that's where my optimism comes from. And the
fact she got back up again. You know, and it's
like for a lot of people who've been in the cracks,
(27:17):
it's they can't entertain the dark. They cannot safely entertain
the darkness, you know. And it's like you've got to
remember that, so so always remember to put your arms
around the bubbly people too, you know what I mean.
It's that thing of like, yeah, watch those sunshine people.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
How does your mum feel about so much of her
life in your childhood being in these books and on
TV series now?
Speaker 5 (27:37):
And it's yeah, it's it's awful. You know, it's terrible
for her, you know, And I think, but it's beautiful.
You know. It's also it's I think the reason she
just loves life. I think I think it's really I
think it's made her past five years and I think
she dreaded every second. But here's the thing about her, Francesca.
You know, she has to go into her boss and go.
(27:58):
So Mom's like brilliant. Now you know, she did ten
years as a traffic control like stop go woman. She
you know, leaves that guy. She should have finished as
psychology degree, but this guy didn't let her. You know,
she gets out of it. She builds her way back
the people of Brisbane furnish her home, you know what
I mean, Like gets a home so her boys can
go visit. And she gets a job at this place
called Budget Direct, you know, which is like an insurance
(28:21):
place in Australia, and you know, works there for twenty years,
and then she has to go into her boss and say, sorry, sorry, boss.
My son's written this book about the years in which
I was really in love with that massive heroin dealer
and I kind of went away for two years. And
this guy reads that book and you know, six months
later he comes in he goes, hey, I read that
book and I want you to know where we're more
(28:42):
proud of you than ever before. And so that's sort
of where she's at, and she'll probably listen to this.
She follows everything, She sees every comment, she sees every quote,
she reads every article, and well, I think I think
she got Okay, I'm going to get really emotionally, but
you know, I think she got up from that phone
(29:02):
box for this. I think that's why she stood up.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
List as well. You've been working for years as a
social affairs journalist. How has that also? I mean, obviously
you can see how that's broadened to these stories as well.
They might not be your story that you're telling, but
obviously that's influenced your writing a lot as well.
Speaker 5 (29:19):
I was everything I saw, you know, everything I saw
from zero to twenty. I got to explore from twenty
to forty as a journalist, and like everything I saw
at my school, you know, everything that was going on
with the kids at my school, or everything that was
going on in my street, you know, growing up, alcoholism, suicide,
you know, poverty. You know, I got to explore as
(29:41):
a journal and do it with actual, like real care,
like I actually really cared about it because I was
just trying to unpack my own stuff. How's a real
benefit to me? You know? I got this dear friend,
he said to me the other day, He goes, you know, Trent,
not all of us got to write books about it,
And I was like, wow, that's really interesting. Not all
of us got to be journals and do all that
(30:02):
with it, you know what I mean? Yeah, some of
us just have to go get like real, just normal
type jobs and then carry that stuff with us and
never process any of it. I got to go into
people's homes for three hours and sit in their living
rooms and go, hey, how are you processing that stuff?
It was very powerful.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
The world's changing so much at the moment, and we're seeing,
you know, the potential of AI in the future and
how it can change the world, and we're watching you know,
media industry struggle and things. And I stood the session
yesterday and I watched the reaction and the connection that
the audience had with you and your stories in your book,
and I thought, how can AI threaten this? You know
(30:39):
what I mean?
Speaker 5 (30:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Yeah, I mean, do you look, You've got a couple
of teenage kids and they're about to, you know, head
out into the world and things, and are you sitting
there having conversations with and going, well, the sensible thing
to study now would be.
Speaker 5 (30:53):
So, can I just say that there's a massive elephant
in this room. It's a happy elephant. It's your birthday.
Can I just acknowledge that because we're talking about kids before,
I just want to say the biggest happy birthday to
you from all of your amazing listeners.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
It's been a real birthday.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
I hope you have the best I hope a little bit. Sorry,
I just want to blow that open. But that's such
a good question I had, you know, Boycewallows Universe was
one of the books that got fed into AI. You know,
there was this list of and I found out from
a journal in Western Australia calls me up and they said,
do you know that your book was fed into the
AI system for what a novel is? You know, so
(31:29):
if you type into basically whatever chat GBT or something
and you go, you know, write me a novel, you know,
basically you know, boy Swallows Universe was one of the
thousands that you know it learned from. And I thought
that was hilarious because not only is that kind of
not even my story, that's my mum's story. That's they're
(31:49):
kind of stealing there. It's like my mum had to
live that, and then I had to live a bit
of it. My brothers had to live that story, you
know what I mean. And that's where that's where our
storytelling should always come from. It should always come from
the little stones we carry around in our bellies, you know.
And A I can never do that, and but yeah,
(32:09):
it's treacherous. And I've got a daughter who all she
wants to do is sing and play guitar, and I
just think, wow, you know, is there is there gonna
be a world where that is still incredibly valued. Thing.
Are the next people fifty years from now going to
value it as much as I value that that notion,
you know, because that stuff people who sing and play
(32:31):
guitar saved my life and and I personally think it's
one of the most important jobs in the world. And
I've told her that, but I've also told her, I
don't know if that's going to really pay your bills.
So I have said that thing of like that terrible
thing that a parent sort of sets, you know, maybe
think about education or or as you said, Francesca, commerce
(32:51):
and you like and you do you sort of go,
you know, but that's responsible parenting as well. But then
the part of me is just a kid.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
How can you not let them go and do what
they give it a whirl, what they love and the
patient about and.
Speaker 5 (33:02):
Go for it, because because never get to never you
don't want to get to that place and go I didn't.
I didn't give it ten years of just going to
Prague and with my guitar. You know, it's like that's
that's living. And I hope she does.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
You know.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
Your or Can Writer's Festival session today is the craft
of making people care.
Speaker 4 (33:20):
Do people care?
Speaker 6 (33:22):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (33:22):
They what?
Speaker 5 (33:23):
Correct?
Speaker 2 (33:24):
They do?
Speaker 5 (33:25):
They do? They absolutely still do. Anyone who reads my
books care because my books are filled with such you know,
they're not the most beautifully written books, but they're filled
with such care. You know, like if there's anything I
can offer is my care. And I just yesterday showed
me that in spades, Like it was so you should have.
(33:46):
You were there, said I was there. It was like
I'm telling you, they all stood up because they care.
And people will never stop caring, you know. And it's
and it's so beautiful to live in, you know, a
world where you know, hope and care and compassion is
still burning bright, you know. And I said yesterday, there's
always someone who's going to want to make you cynical.
There's all someone and you just got to fight that.
(34:08):
You just got to fight him. You've got to fight
him with your smile.
Speaker 6 (34:10):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
Trent Dalton, thank you so much for coming it and
making my birthday hi very sad, very much.
Speaker 5 (34:16):
This has been beautiful.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Thank you for bringing you the best interviews from the
Sunday session. Great chats with Francesca Rudkin on iHeartRadio Empowered
by News Talks at b.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
That was Trent Dalton. That show was on my birthday.
Have you really made my day? If you have to
work on your birthday, you want someone hopeful around like Trent,
you have to turn another year older. He really is
a beautiful man. If you haven't already, I recommend picking
up one of Trent's books. And now we head to
Hollywood and my next guest is also very down to
(34:49):
earth and open, but has had an extraordinary career. Actress
Diane Krueger made a name for herself starring in Quentin
Tarantino's and Glorious Bastards, Troy National Treasure, and her latest
film is Dreiker, directed by Kiwi director James Napier Robinson.
It's based on the story of the b Lorena Joy Womack.
The conversation began with Diane telling me what drew her
(35:12):
to the character and the story.
Speaker 6 (35:14):
Well, I've always loved the ballet. I was a ballet
dancer myself from a very young agehn not as talented
obviously as Joka is, but I've just and to this day,
you know, I just enjoy watching the ballet. I love
the discipline, the gracefulness, the music and.
Speaker 4 (35:38):
To play you know, a teacher.
Speaker 6 (35:41):
At the Bullshoy, which to this day is considered the
highest form of ballet and the highest academy to be
able to get into.
Speaker 4 (35:51):
Was just wonderful.
Speaker 6 (35:52):
And also, you know, the movie is based on a
true story that always draws me in.
Speaker 4 (35:57):
I find that fascinating.
Speaker 2 (35:59):
Yeah, what was it like to be back in the
dance studio.
Speaker 4 (36:04):
It was great. It was a little trading as well.
Speaker 6 (36:07):
I don't do a lot of dancing myself, and obviously
I'm way too old to be really as flexible as
I once was. But just you know, I love the
atmosphere of a ballet's studio. I love seeing the girls
do their exercises. You know, I'm still obviously able to
see who does well, who's struggling in certain areas. You know,
(36:31):
it's it all comes back to you, and yeah, I
just remember I have good memories of that time in
my life.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
While you say that you weren't as talented as Joika,
I mean you did take it very seriously. We should
explain to people that you trained at the Royal Academy
in London. I mean, this is what you did think
you were going to do with your life right, Yes.
Speaker 6 (36:52):
To a certain extent. I was very young, you know,
I was a child, and I would go there on
my vacations, you know, to do dance camp. I guess
in a way, I did take it very seriously. I
did train every single day. But you know, for me,
there was this turning point where it did not become
(37:12):
fun anymore. Once I sort of hit puberty and my
body started to change and I was falling behind.
Speaker 4 (37:22):
I had a knee injury.
Speaker 6 (37:25):
Which kind of took me out for many months, and
then just the pain of coming back and trying to
regain all that flexibility was just torture to me. So
it became not fun, you know, And I just I
guess I didn't see myself ever trying to dance in
the back of the of the stage.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I'm going to be honest. Watching Joika's journey, it didn't
look a lot like a lot of fun either. Diane, Yeah,
I mean it is.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
It is the for those girls, you know.
Speaker 6 (37:56):
I think it's that intoxicating mixture of pleasure, the pleasure
of dancing. There is this a little bit perverse, I'd say,
pleasure of overcoming pain and overcoming personal limitations that you
think you have. You know, I think any athlete might
(38:19):
feel the same way.
Speaker 4 (38:21):
And it is a community, you.
Speaker 6 (38:22):
Know, it is a little bubble of community. And that's
what I remember the most, was feeling part of you know,
a mutual goal, a mutual ambition. I do have mostly
great memories of that.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
Time because I think with this film you do question
that desire to sacrifice everything to achieve. Yeah, you want
to achieve, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 6 (38:51):
Because it's it's It's also set in Russia, right, so
I think the Bolshoy there's not a lot of room for.
Speaker 4 (39:00):
For enjoyment or excess, I guess, and it's quite political.
Speaker 6 (39:07):
I will say that the ballet world in general is
very competitive and very cutthroat, not just in Russia. So
I do think when you when you do get to
a certain level, to push through that last door, I
think in any academy around the world is very difficult
and tedious.
Speaker 2 (39:28):
Well, how wonderful being an actor and been able to
step back into the dance studio and into that world again.
You very much looked you know, you absolutely were the
right person for this job. You looked so comfortable. I
absolutely bel did. I had little kind of flashbacks to
my childhood and dance teachers as well.
Speaker 4 (39:47):
She is strict, so many of them are.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
So after the knee and obviously and the torture of
sort of if we dance got to you and things,
was it kind of a natural progression to go, Okay, well,
what else is there that I where I can express
the and represent sort of human experiences? Was acting sort
of the obvious next step for you?
Speaker 4 (40:14):
No, it kind of wasn't. You know.
Speaker 6 (40:16):
I don't come from an artistic family at all, and
from a very small place in Germany, so that part
was not really encouraged. I kind of fell into ballet
because it was an after school activity and.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
You know, we didn't have an any kind of thing,
so that was.
Speaker 6 (40:36):
A thing for my mom to have an hour and
a half to, I don't know, go buy groceries.
Speaker 4 (40:40):
You know.
Speaker 6 (40:42):
It was now when I look back as an adult,
you know, it was very much an outlet of.
Speaker 4 (40:49):
Anger, anxiety, joy. You know.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
It was a place I felt validated and seen, you know,
and performing even though I had terrible stage fright. But
very early on I got that sense of being you know,
rewarded for hard work that I put into you know,
and at the same time, I was taking seriously at something.
(41:14):
So when that ended, for many years, actually I felt
I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do.
Speaker 4 (41:22):
I went back to school, obviously, and.
Speaker 6 (41:26):
Yeah, it was a very confusing time in my life
because I didn't see myself as being you know, a
great academic going to university and you know, becoming I
don't know, a lawyer, or I didn't see myself getting
married and having children. You know, I was staying staying
back home. So modeling came around. Somebody saw me in
(41:50):
the streets and had sent in a picture to this
modeling contest, which weirdly, you know, ended up working out
for me, and that kind of brought me to Paris,
and that was really fun for a while because it
allowed me to be financially independent for the first time
in my life, you know, which is not to be underestimated.
I felt like a grown up even though I was,
(42:11):
you know, barely sixteen.
Speaker 4 (42:13):
And then I think by the.
Speaker 6 (42:15):
Time I was around nineteen twenty, I found that to
be not enough.
Speaker 4 (42:20):
You know.
Speaker 6 (42:20):
I just felt like it was becoming a little repetitive.
And also I really didn't like being judged on my exterior.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
After a while, you know.
Speaker 6 (42:31):
It becomes the pursuit of perfection became a little tiresome.
So I met a boy in Paris who was an actor,
and he told me about acting school, that you could
do that, and so I went to acting school. And
that's kind of when I felt, oh, okay, I belong here,
I could there's something here that I can do.
Speaker 4 (42:52):
And that's kind of how it started.
Speaker 2 (42:54):
When you say you met a boy and he told
you you could go to acting school, Is it not
something that you'd sort of you knew about. Actually were
sort of a way that you could do.
Speaker 4 (43:02):
You could train to be an actor.
Speaker 6 (43:04):
No, really, I had no idea you could train to
become an actor. I thought you had to live like
in a big town and you had to be discovered
and put in a movie, you know, just like modeling.
Kind of happened to me, Like I had zero clue
that there were acting schools. Also, my mother would have
never It's not something that would have been on the table.
Speaker 2 (43:25):
Coming back to Joika, how did you become connected to
this project?
Speaker 6 (43:30):
It kind of came to me, you know, I by
just one day got that call, you know, they would
like to meet you over zoom same thing, very very
early for you, very late for me. And James and
I just connected and I loved the story naturally, and
so yeah, it kind of happened naturally like that.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Did you enjoy working with New Zealand director James Napier Robinson.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Yeah, he was awesome. He's just he was you know.
Speaker 6 (44:00):
I kept asking him like, why do you want to
make a movie about girls dancing?
Speaker 4 (44:05):
You know, ballet like?
Speaker 6 (44:08):
And he was just so he was passionate about the subject,
you know, having met the real joker and he was so.
Speaker 4 (44:18):
Into it. And so you know, open.
Speaker 6 (44:21):
To the female I guess gays and the female dam
as you would say in French.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
You know, my guest is actress Diane Krueger. You've worked
with some major directors and alongside some major stars. How
different are those experiences? Are there similarities to being on
a set shooting a film or is it different depending
on the personalities in their style of working.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
Yeah, I would say that.
Speaker 6 (44:52):
The main difficulty for an actor is to mold yourself
to a director's vision. Right. Every director is very very
different and likes to work in very different ways, some
that you don't necessarily correspond to and that you find
not productive.
Speaker 4 (45:11):
At all.
Speaker 6 (45:12):
You know, some directors loved over hers and go over
and over and over the dialogue. Others don't do that,
you know, so it's very I find that I still
find that the hardest part about being an actor. You know,
the work itself is the same, it's just how do
you fit into the universe of that particular director.
Speaker 2 (45:34):
How has the industry changed since you started out acting?
To me, you're an actress who has chosen characters with
depth and something to say. You've played such a broad range.
You've been able to cross between the blockbuster to the
indie without being stereotyped. Is it easier these days the
women to get grittier roles.
Speaker 6 (45:59):
That's a very difficult question to answer because I mean,
while I think with you know, the arrival of the
streamers like Netflix and all those you know, Amazon, all
those different streamers, I think there's more work.
Speaker 4 (46:12):
You know, traditionally women have.
Speaker 6 (46:16):
The opportunity to have better parts and more lead roles
on television or on streamers. Also women of certain you know,
older women. I think it's changed in the way that
the studios in America anyways tend to make films for
you know, teenagers and young adults, and they're those big blockbusters.
Speaker 4 (46:39):
They often cast unknowns because they.
Speaker 6 (46:41):
Don't want to, you know, pay someone who's very established
or they you know, it's the franchise that's important. Almost
It's like it doesn't really matter, you know, who's in it,
or so they think. And those middle ground films, you know,
in a way like Joika, they don't exist very much anymore.
(47:04):
Also because audiences, older audiences don't go to movies as much.
I think, you know, I blame myself, you know. Ever
since I've become a mom, I watch everything on TV
at home, you know, not necessarily TV movies, but like
I buy a movie and I watch it at home.
So things changed, for sure. I do think there's a
(47:25):
lot of I mean, I've never been busier, let's put
it out. I've never been busier now than when I was,
you know, my twenties.
Speaker 2 (47:34):
And look touching on becoming a mother, it is actually
Mother's Day here in New Zealand. So can I just
finish by asking you how has motherhood changed your life?
Speaker 6 (47:45):
A first of all, happy Mother's Day and to you
if you've all indeed them all, I don't know, but.
Speaker 8 (47:52):
It's changed it, you know, in every possible way, which
it should. It's definitely full on and it's the best
thing ever. But it also, you know, it made me
a better person, a less compromisable person in many ways
when it comes to work. You know, I think I
love what I do, and I don't get to do
(48:12):
it as often as I used to, but when I do,
I feel like I'm two hundred percent committed because it
is so much organization, you.
Speaker 6 (48:21):
Know, to make it all happen. But I you know,
I love it. It's it's I can't wait to come
home every day to see my kid.
Speaker 1 (48:30):
The best guest from the Sunday session Great Jazz with
Francesca rud Get on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks, It'd.
Speaker 2 (48:38):
Be that was the lovely Dayane Krueger, who much like
Mary and Keys, took a very relaxed approach to the interview.
She had her video on. She was just kind of
slouched against a wall, sitting on the floor and a
T shirt, looking terribly glamorous. And I thought to myself,
if it was if I was doing that, someone will
probably ask if I was okay. They presume that I'd
sort of slipped down the wall. Anyway, very relaxed and
(49:02):
casual and fabulous to mate. Thank you so much for
joining me on this News Talks AIRB podcast. Please feel
free to share these chats. If you like this podcast,
make sure you follow us on iHeartRadio or wherever you
get your podcasts. And don't forget we are releasing new
podcasts on Mondays and Fridays over summer.
Speaker 1 (49:21):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to News Talks The B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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