May 6, 2025 • 49 mins
Meet Paulina Porizkova, a Swedish-American model, actress, and author. She's has an illustrious career on magazine covers, as the face of numerous brands, and as an advocate for women. I had an amazing time catching up with her, and I hope you enJOY!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come
and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually
it's about an hour and a half and I don't
have an opener because these guys cost money. But what
I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway,
come and see me live on the Pants on Fire
Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and
we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty
(00:23):
twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates,
go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com. See you
on the road, My DearS. My name is Craig Ferguson.
The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to
interest in people about what brings them happiness. Hello everyone, now,
(00:47):
my guest today was one of my favorite recurring guests
on the old Late Night Show. She is a remarkably interesting,
fascinating human being with an amazing story to tell, which
if you hang around and you're about to hear she
is the check Wonder Girl. Howlina Rishkova. That's how you
(01:07):
say in check, or you could say it in America
by saying Kawlina Potskova, Yes, she enjoy there you are right?
May I say? We both don't look a day older
(01:28):
than when we were carrying on on late night.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Oh, I think we look about a decade older, but
I think it suits us.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
How about that? Well, okay, I'll take it. I suppose
I do. I don't think you do? You look incandescent?
Are you happy? Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I'm I am very happy. Not gone, you know Czech
tradition Eastern European have to touchwood. Yes, I'm I am
actually incredibly happy, or at least you're talking to me
at a moment where I am incredibly happy. How about you?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, no, pretty good. Actually I'm in a reasonable mood
and I'm reasonably happy. I feel like it's quite interesting
the last time we spoke. Whenever we spoke before, it
was always for ten minutes in front of a couple
of hundred people, and I always thought, you know, it's
such an odd thing because I felt like I knew
you and I felt like we were friendly. But we really,
(02:25):
honestly are conversations. We're just that. Yeah, it's maybe a
little bit how did you do beforehand? And that was it?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, I know after I did your show for the
first time, all my friends sort of came away and
they were all, like, my god, you guys had such chemistry.
It's like you were old friends, and so, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
That's one of those things you remember certain people. You
were always one of my favorite guests. You still are
to this day. So let me tell you this though.
What you can't do in ten minutes is you really
can't find out about someone. And what I wanted to
talk to you about today is because we always joked
to you about you were coming from Eastern Europe and
(03:08):
stuff like that. But you correct me Ifro'm wrong, But
weren't you born when the Soviets were still in control
of Eastern Europe? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Actually, thanks you making me a little younger than I
actually am. I just turned sixty last week. So I
was born in sixty five and the Soviets came in
in sixty eight, so I was I was three years
old when they occupy the country. And this is what
(03:37):
sort of set up my life and the life of
my parents on a very interesting personal trajectory. Besides, you know,
the whole country going to shit.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, I mean, do you remember the Soviets were you
were you out there by you were out there quite young.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
No, So what happened was that my parents left in
nineteen sixty eight because they knew, you know, we were
getting occupied. Everybody knew this. The tanks were rolling in,
and few brave people decided to chance it and leave.
My parents were two of those, two of those, because
(04:14):
they were you know, they were like my mother was
like twenty one, my dad was twenty four. I mean,
they're very young. And they jumped on a motorcycle and
just drove between the tanks and drove out to Austria
to a refugee camp. And they left me behind, thinking
that they would get me a couple of weeks later,
you know that, you know, once they were established in
(04:34):
the normal country, that they would just be able to
get me out. And that did not work at all.
And I was out with my grandmother, and of course,
you know, three, I have no I had no idea,
just figured, oh, my parents sort of suddenly disappeared. Nobody
told me where they went, so I sort of assumed
that they were dead, but in a kind of a
(04:56):
childish way of like, oh, my parents went to heaven,
and I couldn't, well, you know happened.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So you you didn't think you were traumatized by it
in anyway. I feel like I feel like I feel
like this is a deep and profound childhood trauma right there.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Oh, it's a deep and profound childhood trauma, all right. Yeah,
But it doesn't start plaguing you until you grow up
and you try to form relationships, you know, Yes, that's
when you kind of get the full impact of what
actually happened and how you included together.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Let me ask you about this, this amazing like an
odd question, but have you ever had in your life
a fear of flying?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I did? I had. I had a huge fear of
flying for about twenty years in between not being scared
at all and then not being scared at all. Again,
very what are you asking?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Because there's a guy there's a fear of flying guy
and old. I think he was an American airlines captain.
His name is Tom Bann and he does he helps
people who are frightened of flying. And I used to
be fighting of flying too. Oh really and yeah, and
he says that a lot of it is not about
(06:16):
flying at all, but a lot of it is to
do with when you were a kid an authority figure
that you should trust and that you placed all your
trust in lets you down badly, and later on it
manifests itself as a fear of flying. I just thought, oh, well,
this sounds like a classic. Is that really? How did
you get over it.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
As a desire to control? Yeah, I am a cot
and utter control freak. How about you?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Pretty much the same? What I did was is I
became a control freak so much so that I got
my pilot's license, I learned to fly.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, and that makes perfect sense to me.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, isn't that funny? A lot of people that like
that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, now that's the way to go about it. You
can then pilot your own plane. And I what I
did was I got myself a Vestpa that I ride
around New York and that makes me feel like I'm
in control.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
You still write it around Oh yeah, yeah, yeah that
is baller? Is it the classic Italian looking thing with
a little bit in the front and river? Then yes,
fucking great, Yes, that is great.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I've had it for like twenty eight years or something.
I used to drive my kids to school on it,
and so they were like always like the hippest kids
to you know, get off their moms by in their
little leather jackets and you know, flick your hair.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Very show cow baby.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
It's cool and it's in New York.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Are you still in New York? Yeah, you know, I
just moved back to New York.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
No, I did not know that way day. Do you
catch me up on your life? What are you? What
are you up to?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, you know, I'm not doing tons. I'm doing some things,
but I've been doing live stuff because I you know,
doing stand up because I kind of after Late Night
I was like, I don't know if I ever want
to see the inside of a television studio or again.
And I'm over that now and I'm doing it. But
it was kind of it was so intense that period
(08:17):
that like ten years, I'm doing the show every night,
ten minute conversation, ten minutes. Some people you remember, like you,
I remember, of course very well. But there are people
who were on that, like I've met since who have said, oh,
you should have been on the Late Night Show and
they're like, oh, I was on it three times a
bit and so I kind of like, I do stand
(08:38):
up and I do bits and pieces and I went
to live in Scotland for a while for like five years.
I think, well, then we move. We moved back after that.
But have you ever moved back to Europe? Have you
ever spent time back there? You never gone back?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I really love Europe, Like I feel when I go
back there, there's a part of me that feels at
home or maybe safe to some extent. But you know,
I've lived in the United States now longer than I've
lived anywhere else in fact. So see this apartment. This
(09:15):
is a rented apartment that I'm very passionate. I love
this apartment because it's the first place that I got
to move in by myself since I was like eighteen.
I chose all the wallpaper and made it look kind
of European. But right across this wall right there, Yes,
(09:35):
the very first apartment that I rented when I was
seventeen years old and I moved to New York. So
I live right next door to the seventeen year old me.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Ah, how is the seventeen year old you do it?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Well, well, she's dead.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Well let me ask you this. I put it a
different way, so you're left behind in check or what
they called I guess what did they call it?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Then it's a well, it was Czechoslovakia back then. Then
I'm trying to do the Czech Republic. And now we're
supposed to call it check. Yeah, which is what we
checks have always called it CHECKI check Chickie.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Well, I don't know any any check person I've talked
to about. I'm going to talk to a couple of
the producer of the show, Tomas, who's check.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, I can know by his last name.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, it's called Zachopalzo.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Bill means somebody who was buried.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, it's I think it's it's undertaker or something, isn't it,
which is perfect for him.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Poor man.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
No, No, he's great, he's just he's a he's a cheerful,
dark soul.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
But I think we all are.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, the Czech people are quite like that, right, quite
cheerful but quite well.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Look, we've been occupied for our entire existence. So like
there's a there's a you learned that life is best
lived with incredibly low expectations, and that things can turn
on the dime, and that you know things are happy
today and tomorrow somebody will come in and wreck your life.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So this is amazing. It's like talking to a very
beautiful version of Tomas.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
We're all the same.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Hello. This is Greig Ferguson and I want to let
you know I have a brand new stand up comedy
special out now on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy,
and I would be so happy if you checked it out.
To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel
at the Graig Ferguson Show and is this right there?
Just click it and play it and it's free. I
(11:54):
can't look. I'm not going to come around your house
and show you how to do it. If you can't
do it, then you can have it. But if you
can figure it out, yours. So what happened then? Did
you ever reunite with your parents? Oh?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Well, it's quite quite a bit of a story. I
guess you can always edit it out right.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
No, it's not at all, but.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
You're welcome to if you want to. So what happened
was that my parents. My parents made it into Austria.
They didn't get shot, so that was nice. I was
left with my grandmother and then from the Austrian refugee
camp they got sent to Sweden, which was a big
you know, a place that was hospitable to refugees at
(12:37):
that point, and then they were trying to get me
out and they couldn't. The borders were closed and you know,
that was over. So my parents, again being very young
and very photogenic, decided to sort of raise awareness for
their cause of like not being able to get their child.
(12:57):
And so they started with doing a hung strike in
front of the Stockholm Embassy, the Czech embassy in Stockholm,
to tell you who, get people empathetic and sign you know,
sign on a whatever lists of people protesting the Czech
government not allowing their daughter to be released. And the
(13:19):
Czech government did absolutely nothing, but the Swedes really liked us.
They got kind of whipped into a frenzy of helping
these two young, beautiful people to get their daughter out.
So I became sort of a cause celeb of course, figures.
It was like my early career. I was a famous
(13:41):
political refugee and I became famous in Sweden as like
little Paulina, poor little Paulina.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Oh no, I didn't no idea, So how did did
they get you out? The Swedes got you.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Out there kind of eventually, but three years my parents
were using all the press and all the me and
they were on TV and eventually a Swedish magazine. Actually,
I believe the checks sent them my parents a letter
saying that because they hadn't claimed me for three years,
I was going to be adopted to a suitable family.
(14:17):
So that of course would mean that they would lose
me forever. And they did sort of this desperate last
attempt in which a Swedish newspaper funded getting two Swedish
pilots and my mother to go and kidnap me on
my way from school. They were going to kidnap me.
They had a false passport for me. My mother had
(14:39):
a false passport claiming she was one of the pilot's
wife and that they were just coming to the Czech
Republic to look at planes to purchase, and while they
did that, they were going to grab me and pack
me off into a small plane. Of course, nobody considered
how I would feel about this, not having seen my
mother in four years and didn't know who she was anymore.
(15:02):
But they so, and the newspaper had, like, what do
you call it? A you know, it was their story.
It was, yeah, there's an exclusive story. And so my
mom and those two pilots, my mom had a wig
and glasses and the false passport, and they land in
(15:23):
the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia. They rent a car and
they're driving on the way to my little town to
get me on my way to school, and they get
busted for speeding. Yeah uh, and so they get taken
to a police station interrogated. Apparently somebody might have written
(15:46):
to the authorities that my mother was going to try
to kidnap me.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So so the whole thing unspooled and that they were
all put in jail, the Swedish pilots and my mother.
My mother was six months pregnant with my baby brother.
And now this newspaper had gotten a way better story
than they even bargained for.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Oh my god, I know. Yeah, but what goes on?
How long are they in jail? What happened?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well, my mother is in jail for about three months,
and then because there was you know, the Sweden was
you know, it was all our story. Oh my god,
Anna Broskova got caught. She's in jail, she's pregnant, she's
not gotten to see Paulina, Like you know, this is
like a huge story. So she was given amnesty. About
(16:40):
three months into this, she got given an amnesty and
so she was allowed to come and stay at my
grandmother's house with me and grandma under house arrest for
the next three years. The Swedish pilots I believe, were
in jail for like ten years.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
What yeah, baby brother, and your baby brother is born,
your dad is still in Sweden.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Dad is still in Sweden, and my dad is sort
of carrying on, you know, doing all the interviews. He's
meeting with all of Palmer, the Swedish Prime minister, to
see if there's a way that all of Palmer can
move anything to get us out, and there's like and
this is going on for another three years of this
(17:26):
sort of back and forth, Swedish newspaper men coming into
the Czech Republic to take pictures of us that they
can then publish in magazines in Sweden. And at the
end of those three years, so in nineteen seventy three,
I believe there the Swedish hockey team was supposed to
play the checks in like the International Friendships Games or something,
(17:47):
and they refuse to play the checks unless they released us,
and all of Palmer refused to make a States visit
unless they released us, and then they finally and then
they pouted us out, say in nineteen seventy three day
Tom's passport and said get out and don't ever come back.
And then that was that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
No, you see, this is something that doesn't come up
in a ten minute conversation. So you're by this thing,
what nine years old? Almost?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yes, so I was nine when we left the check repart.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Right, and now you become a Sweedish citizen, I guess right.
And families reunited.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, for about a week or so. Because my dad
had found some other woman while I'm alm was gone,
so he promptly left. And then mom was sort of
a single parent and she was having a bit of
a nervous breakdown, and so it was me and my
little brother kind of left to our you know, own devices.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
As they say, this is a movie polylievable.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I know, but every time I tell somebody the story,
they're kind of like, yeah, it's kind of too much.
You know, did just give me half of that story?
The full story is? It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
And then you know what, I think maybe it's not
a movie. I think it's like ten episodes on Netflix,
that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, I think it has to be a limited TV
series thing.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, I think it is you ever, because then after that,
if you're like you're now like nine, ten years old,
you're in Sweden, and by the time you're what seventeen,
you're eleven in New York.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Well by the time I'm fifteen, I'm a model in
Paris on my own.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
How does that happen?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Because your famous little Paulina is now growing up? She's
very beautiful and actually she's not grown up, she's only fifteen.
Why is she going to Paris?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Well, because models start very young. I think I think
we know that.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
That seems very very young, doesn't you know?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Well, yes, it's very very young. But I was I
had a girlfriend who really was interested in fashion, and
she wanted to be a fashion photographer. And mind you,
we're like teens, you know, like little teens do the selfies,
you know these days. So she sort of she would
take pictures of me on her little instematic pocket camera,
(20:14):
and then she sent those pictures into some scout in
the city where we lived in lund in Sweden, to
ask what she thought of her photography, like, oh, do
you you know, how do I become a fashion photographer?
And the lady got back to her saying yeah, you know,
photographyish photography. Who's the girl? How old is she? And
how tall is she?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And she introduced me to John Cassiblanket when I was fourteen.
He took a look. He said, would you like to
go to Paris over the summer? And I was like, uh, yeah,
And so I was sent to Paris over some Now
it was supposed to be just a summer job in
all fairness, Yeah, but you know I got to Paris
(20:56):
that I was fifteen, I was really four. I started
working kind of right away, and by the time the
summer was over, I had traveled like I had gone
to Morocco, I had gone to Japan on my own
by myself. They just they would hand me a plane
ticket and say go, and I would go. And going
(21:19):
going back to school seemed boring.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, no, I understand it, does it do? I mean, look,
I'm not your father, as you well know, but it
does worry me. Wait what Yeah, it worries me though
the idea of that fifteen year old sixteen year old
Paulina is two and the fashion world is not renowned
for being full of scrupulous characters.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Kind men who want what best, fatherly type.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah, well, how how was it? Did you how did
you manage? Were you okay?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Well with okay meaning you know, did I survive? And
not get right like, clearly you survived? But yes, yes,
clearly you survived and clearly you thrived. But was it
a very difficult time? Was at a very unpleasant time? Well?
You know what it was both, to be honest, it
was being fifteen and completely unsupervised and making more money
(22:17):
in three months and your parents making a year is
not a terrible place to be at times. And then
at times, you know, when you're by yourself in your
little apartment and you are scared and you're young and
you don't really know there's no real safety for you,
(22:38):
than it's scary. So it was both. It was sort
of a time of extremes. I think, you know, it's.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
An interesting thing as well, because if you are and
you clearly are, I mean, I'm sure you're at peace
with this now. But you're very beautiful. And so when
people are very beautiful, I've noticed that something's other people
will punish them in bed, they'll be quite cruel to them.
They become a little strange. Particularly, I think you know,
(23:09):
they always say things like beauty's only skin deep and
it's not really that valuable, and what you have is
just luck and kind of downplay it all the time,
which I think is kind of I don't think that's necessary.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Really, well, is it necessary?
Speaker 1 (23:27):
No?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I think it's It's just it's a human emotion when somebody,
you know, how we all compare one and ourselves to
other people. We can't help it. It's a biological function comparison. Right,
where do I stand in society? And when you are
seen as an attractive and young woman, by the way,
(23:48):
you have to be yelp.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
The nice thing.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
About being older is that I don't get that anymore.
Nobody gives a shit. It's like, you can be attractive
because you know, guys are not going to go for
me anymore because I'm too old.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah. I don't know if that's entirely realistic, but fair enough.
I'll go with you. And the uh, thank you. So
you're doing these modeling assignments and stuff like that, and
you are clearly again all this information from the world
that you are young and you're beautiful, and that is
a commodity, and so you what do you do? You
take it to New York that's what you decide to do,
(24:22):
or did the job take you there?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, No, it's you know, it's there's a very small
there's very little decision making when you're a fifteen year
old child, you do you sort of the nice thing
about it is that you're endlessly flexible, right, so right
wherever they put you, you just kind of go with
it and you go, oh, well, that's this is the
way it's supposed to be. Have you ever seen Felini's eight.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And a half a long time ago, like a long
time ago.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Well, I just I just rewatched it the other day,
and it's a really kind of a cool movie and
it's beautiful. Yeah, but it really is. He's kind of
like the insane ravings of a middle aged man who
finds himself, you know, doesn't know where where he's going
next career wise, and all these women that he's disappointed,
(25:14):
and you know, a man in menopause. And I just
could watch the whole movie. I thought, Oh, like, I
feel like I watched the film about my father.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
It's funny. Yeah, I know what you mean. Did you
kind of reunite with your father? Did you manage to
form a relationship with him at all? Is he still around?
He's still around.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I made an attempt a few times here and there
to see if we could perhaps have some sort of relationship,
and then I always sort of came away with he's
not really worth it. So no, no, okay, it does
set you up for a lifetime full of looking for
(26:00):
the wrong man.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Do you think you did that? You were looking for
the wrong man for sure? Yeah, dear, that is upsetting.
So you're in New York and but like, by this time,
you know through all of these you know this is
going on. You're not one of the supermodels, right, and
that's what they were calling you girls like and you
were the kind of well you're the first wave of
(26:23):
the super mussy. Guess you kind of wear right Damn.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I mean, you know, I can't toot my own horn
because I'm Eastern European. But thank you for thank you
for mentioning it yourself.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yes, so does what does that due to a person
of obvious intelligence that the message you're getting is that
you have this this weird power, which is is clearly marketable.
You're very successful, you're making good money and your world famous,
(26:57):
and all you have to do is be you.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, actually, it's not so much.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Well, it's not about it.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
In some ways, it's simpler. All you have to do
is show up. But whether you're you or somebody else
entirely different inside really doesn't matter. What it does is
that for a woman, it sort of sets you up
for feeling like the only thing of importance about you
is the way you look, so any needs or wants
(27:33):
or desires or thoughts that you have are absolutely unimportant,
and it sort of reassures you that that is in
fact the case. So I think a lot of models
we have a hard time trying to find just find
(27:54):
out who we are, you know, who we are outside
this facade that everybody has sort of narrowed down to
just being a shell. How did you find yourself? How
did you find out where you were?
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Was there a process that you went through that was
conscious or did it? Did it just happened or I mean,
I feel like I assume. I don't know why I
assume this, but it seems to me like you seem
to me like someone who reads, who is connected, who
is interested in the arts, and then politically motivated as well.
(28:39):
Would that be correct?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
That would be correct, Although it didn't seem to matter
very much to literally anybody but perhaps myself.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Well that's good though, that it matters to you.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
It's also infinitely frustrating.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Oh I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure, because no one is
going to take you seriously about anything you say at
all at any point.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
That's so fucking mad. Yeah, fucking mad. I don't know
how anyone could put up with that. Did you find
yourself getting angry?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
I think there was a fair bit of anger, but
I also I'm also scared of anger, so I I
think I would reduce that anger to contempt, a sort
of a slow, simmering contempt for all, for everybody.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, that's that's actually quite cool. I think I as
I sort of seething contempt for everyone. I have to say,
I find that quite attractive that I could have.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
So that's something about your own childhood trauma.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, no, no kidding. But you did find I mean
you you you got married and you had a family
in New York City. That all happened to you.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I did. I met my husband when I was nineteen
and he was forty one, and he lied about it
and said he was thirty seven.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Like that was a big difference. When did you find
out the truth presumably before the first.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Child, before we got married. Good, so like five years later,
oh wow, where he had to come clean, you know,
because I was going to see the bur certificateself, like
he couldn't really pretend anymore. And I kept thinking, you know,
for those five years, I thought things just weren't working
(30:38):
out timeline wise, you know, like how old his oldest
child was versus how old he said he was. And
I kept trying to go back already, go so how
old is Christopher again? And when did you say you
have him? And he would sort of skirt by those conversations.
But uh, yeah, I was very much in love with
(30:59):
my husban because I feel like I had found well,
you know how they say that's becoming a cliche now,
but you marry your unfinished business?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Is that true?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Oh yeah, absolutely, it's absolutely true. I found a man
who with some serious narcissistic tendencies, which both of my
parents have, and so you know, I married. I married
my parents and tried to convert them into actually liking me,
(31:31):
and it worked. It worked for a really long time.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
That's fascinating. Obviously, what I'm doing is I'm going back
to my own romantic history going, Oh my god, I
hate this.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
How many times have you been married?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Now? I'm on number three?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Well, lucky three, but.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
We've been married for a while. I mean, I think
you married again, didn't you? No, no, you didn't marry,
but you're you're in a relationship now.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I'm in a relationship.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, okay, you guys gonna get married.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Well after my husband died and all the ship that happened.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I heard about. Some of that I wasn't gonna make
but yeah, welcome.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
To you because everybody else knows it.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, I just didn't want to make you roll around
in it, you know what I mean. Everybody gets ship
happened in their life. I didn't want to, like, it's
none of my business. I how are you with that
kind of thing? Because I get very uncomfortable in my
lane and work. I'm going to talk to you, know,
I talked to you, and you've gone through some public,
you know, difficulties. I've talked to other people who have
(32:39):
gone through ablem through who use like doesn't have a difficulty,
and I'm still I feel a bit seedy. When you
talk to people about the difficulties of their life, it
doesn't I'd rather keep it more kind of superficial, I suppose. Well,
not because just because I don't know, I just don't
(33:00):
feel like I'm not a journalist, do you know what
I mean, I'm not trying to You don't seem bothered
by discussing that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
No, you know, what I've noticed is that I'm really curious.
I'm really genuinely curious. And by sort of airing out
my life very forthrightly and openly on Instagram, which is
(33:29):
I did by accident, I was just so fucking desperate.
I didn't really know what else to do. It brought
all these connections to me other people that maybe had
similar experiences, and it sort of opens up all these
channels of connection, which I really appreciate. And so it's
a different lifestyle. It's a different life. It's that that
(33:54):
thing that you like so much, that the contempt that, yeah,
that I've let go of, Yeah, and healthy. I am
much happier for it. Yes, I mean I was very
good at it. I had lots and lots of years
of it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
But also, you know, you're an Eastern European supermodel. It's
kind of a good look to be sort of haughty.
You know, it's kind of I hate everyone.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Just leave me alone?
Speaker 1 (34:25):
You are?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
You know I am far superior to you. Yeah, but
that was never me.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
That was never I don't get that from you at all.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I'm essentially a very kind of goofy nerdy. I know.
It's like all pretty women say they are nerdy, but
I truly am. I read a lot like I'm not.
I'm not fabulous.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, I don't know people that read a look and
be fabulous. You're pretty fabolus. I think you're pretty fabulous.
What do you read? What are you drawing to? Do
you read historical fiction? Do you read hardcore physics manuals?
What are you growing to?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, so maybe a little lighter on the hardcore physics
manuals okay, uh huh. But otherwise I read pretty much everything.
I'm kind of indiscriminate in food and reading, but no
longer in my men.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
No. No, I think that's that's a very wise choice
about What about writing? Because you wrote a very interesting
article was the New York Times? You wrote that America
you made me a famous?
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah? Times?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, yeah, some pretty sway. Are you writing more? Are
you writing books? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:45):
So I think when I I think when I was
on your show, I had I think I had published
my novel. You had published a novel. Because I read
your novel, which was very good. I was going to
ask you, are you are you writing more?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You know what? I've been writing a follow up novel
to that novel for the past fifteen years. I think
it's hard. It's hard, Well, you have to write. Did
you write another novel? Have you read another novel?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Not a novel? I wrote a book of personal essays
that was that came out two years ago, and that
was actually incredibly rewarding it. I wrote it in three months. Wow,
I know, a fellow writer can Yeah, I am, Yeah,
that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
What did you just binge it? Did you just like
sixteen hours a day of that kind of thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, every day, sixteen hours. I wanted to see if
I could do it.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Yeah, the challenge of it, and I could do it,
so I'll never do it again. But that was it
was kind of crazy, but I did do it, and
it was you know it was, but it was in
the time. It was after my husband's death and all
of the shit that happened and COVID and losing my
house and all of this stuff, and so all the
(37:05):
things I wanted to write about were like right there.
You know, they were all occupying my brain for the
last two years anyway, so it was just kind of like.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Slash the vein, bleed all over the paper.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
And I totally understand it's a great way to find
some kind of relief if you're in distress, psychic distress,
to write. I think somehow. I think it's a little
bit to do what we talked about right at the beginning.
It's about control that if you write it down, you're
(37:37):
in charge of it, you know. I mean when I
wrote that novel, I was going through a divorce. It's
very difficult, and you know, I had no control over it,
you know, I didn't know where it was going next.
But if I could go to the book and I
write a book, I knew where everyone was going to
go because I put them there, and it kind of helps.
(38:00):
I think you write more.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Oh oh oh, absolutely. I mean I kind of feel
like writing is what I really do now, even on
my Instagram thread. What I really use it as is
like an outlet for my writing for you know, things
I think of that I want to put down I
(38:23):
sort of to test the fact that it has to
be followed with a picture and now more recently videos
that is I mean, it's it's all completely narcissistic anyway,
but like it's really pushing the envelope and it's like,
but that's I appreciate the fact that I get to
(38:44):
have a voice and I get to use it in
the way that I want.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you. What about the like
social media, because when I was on Instagram I'm not
on anymore. I used to follow you on an Instagram
time would see your posts and stuff like that with
your you know, anger and stuff, and it was, you know,
it was great, but I didn't I've come off I
have like people who do it, no, because I kind
(39:09):
of interact with the amount of I don't know. I
just don't like it. It feels like unfiltered negativity, pooring
at me. I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Well, it can be that, and then it also be
like sort of unquestionable positivity, which.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
You also true, that's true, And I also don't know
if I like that.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, no, I know, I don't like it. I like
whenever somebody says, you know, actually, my boyfriend was saying
that the other day. It's like, Oh, I'm so proud
of you, and I was like, and then he sort
of stopped and said, you don't like when I say that,
do you. I was like, no, No, that that's a
very blanket statement to me. That doesn't mean anything. It's
just it's more about you than it is about me. Yeah,
(39:55):
and that sort of unfiltered adoration that you can get
off of social as well as unfiltered hate. They're both
kind of in the same basket of they need to
be put aside. They're not they don't matter.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, I'm complicated. It's a complicated emotion and I'm not
quite sure because you want to be nice to people
who like you, and you don't want to be nice
to people to dislike you. And the truth is, I
don't think it really mars that much, you know. It's
one of those things. In fact, it was Tomas who
said it because I was getting upset about something on Twitter.
This is how long ago it was. It was Twitter
years ago, and he said to me, with his Eastern
(40:33):
European accent, if you don't look, it's not there. It's
kind of like, isn't it. It's not there, it's not
it's not a thing. If you don't pay any attention
to it, it disappears. Yeah. Well, very few things in life
are true like that. You know. It's like if I
look away, it no longer exists. But I think social
media has that. You know. It's like if I don't
(40:56):
look at it, it's not there.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Well, yes, which is true, but then you're not quite
and I don't and I don't know that this matters.
But that's what social media does, uh, is that it
kind of plugs you into not if you only follow
people that like you or live in your bubble, but
when you separate it and look wider, it does sort
(41:19):
of queue you into sort of the national malaise or
the feelings of like where people are at. I find
that very interesting sort of it's just like an anthropology experiment,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, I get it. It's like you're a little market
research company. I understand, but it's uh, I don't know.
I think you've you've done better evolving out of the
control freak area than I have.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I Like, I don't know, it's still need into control.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I'm aware of it, and I I don't need to
control it. But I think Honestly, I don't know if
you can relate to this at all, but I think
I'm actually quite shy, quite reticent. I don't really like,
you know, I feel it's like, not so much shy.
That's not right. I think it's unseemly to talk yourself up,
(42:22):
and I feel like when I see other people doing
it as well, I find it kind of I don't
really want to see you saying how great you are.
It feels kind of like dumb. And that's why when
you said you had content for everything, I was like, oh,
that's good.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I'm not the only one.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
No, I don't have content for everything. I really don't.
I think I'm quite a joyful person, but I get on.
I'm a Scottish Protestant. I'm uncomfortable nearly all the time.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yes, oh my god, I know that so well. Like
but being a I mean, I guess at the East
and Catholic. Yes, being uncomfortable nearly all the time is
sort of what we've been programmed to.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Be, right kind of. There is a there is a
moral kind of grace to feeling bad. That it's a plus.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yes, you're a good person if you feel bad about it.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
If you feel bad. Yeah, it's kind of weird, right,
It's a very weird thing. Look, we're out of time
for this thing. Are you let me ask you this though,
Have you done a part? Are you doing a podcast yet?
Because you know that's next you have to do a podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Well, you know, everybody and their mother is doing a podcast.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
No offense to you tell me about it. I've got
ten left on that no twelve left of this one,
and then I have contractually obliged to do no more.
And let me tell you I'll be doing no more. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Well, okay, So since you were asking me about podcasts,
do you enjoy doing them?
Speaker 1 (43:59):
You know I do. But the way that we are
talking now is I would rather have this see I
let me backtrack it a little bit and answer it,
and I kind of round about way. I feel like
when I do a podcast like this, when I talk
to someone like you like this on a zoom call
(44:20):
or whatever we're calling it now, I'm as good as
anyone else. But I feel like if you and I
are sitting in the same room and we're talking to
each other, I'm better than most and I feel like
I can do this thing better. Not over the zoom
so if I continue to do it, I want to
(44:42):
do it so that we can all be in we
can be in the same room, because there's something about
the nature of human interaction, which it's okay. I mean,
we're talking fine, and I'm not holding anything back, and
I don't get a sense you are either, But somehow
there is a it's just deffinite to be in the room.
It creates a different thing.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
I agree. I mean, I think that this is where technology,
as it joins us together, keeps us apart.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
I mean absolutely, yeah, I think that's exactly so.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
So you're not going to do a podcast, then I'm
actually also more interested in talking to real people rather
than than zooming with people. And I've never liked phone calls.
I still really Oh no, I hate them. Is it
such a waste of time?
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Oh my god, just say what you have to say
and get off the phone. That's that's please.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Because I can't see how you look on the phone.
I can't see your expressions. I can't see the twinkle
or the disdain in your eye that I need to
see for conversation.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Yeah, it's exactly I feel about it. I'm like, oh
my god, I love talking to people. I love, They
say an island the crack. I love the crack, you know.
I love joking and laughing and making fun of each
other and flirting and being silly at all of these.
I love all of that. But somehow, in this environment
(46:14):
it's nearly there. But I think I just prefer it
when it's, you know, the live show, right down to
the sense of even, by the way, doing stand up comedy.
I don't mind doing it on TV, and I don't
mind recording a stand up special. But the truth is,
the best shows are always in the theater or the club,
(46:35):
when nobody's got a camera. Those are the best shows.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
And still, I mean, even if you're recording it on
a camera or whatever, you still are performing it, not
to the camera, but to an audience.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Right, yeah, But the camera doesn't get everything. It just doesn't.
It doesn't get at all. It doesn't get everything. And
I think, you know, we may be the last of
a dying breed where you know, the the you know
that what we're talking about will make no sense to
anyone under the age of fifty. I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
I know, it's already starting to be a bit like that.
What's your how old is your youngest child fourteen. Okay,
so so your fourteen year old will look at you this,
I'm sure my the way my children looked at me
and said, mom, were you alive before computers?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah, yes we were.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Are you a boomer or a gen xer?
Speaker 1 (47:31):
I think I'm actually a boomer. I'm nineteen sixty two,
so I'm a boomer. Yeah, So fucking get off my lawn,
you ass all. Oh okay, you did it, and you're
a dead exer right.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Yes, I think gen extra Yes, yes, we're the ones
that are truly sort of in the we stravel both sides,
I think, more so than anybody else.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Sorry, Whereas whereas me I all I do is remember
the war and and when Lord Morris didn't have engines.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Think the Andrews sisters, the boy of company B.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
All right, get out of here. It's lovely to talk
to you. I'll talk to you in person soon, please,
I think that would be really fun. That would be fun.
That would be fun. Right, It's lovely to see it.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Was really nice to see you too on this greeny screen.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
I know it'll look better in computer land.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yeah, I'm surely it will but not me.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, I know you. You will get out of here. Goodbye.
That's the anniversial.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Okay, okay, fine
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Apat Popo paper to per
This is me, Craig Ferguson. I'm inviting you to come
and see my brand new comedy hour. Well it's actually
it's about an hour and a half and I don't
have an opener because these guys cost money. But what
I'm saying is I'll be on stage for a while. Anyway,
come and see me live on the Pants on Fire
Tour in your region. Tickets are on sale now and
we'll be adding more as the tour continues throughout twenty
(00:23):
twenty five and beyond. For a full list of dates,
go to the Craig Ferguson show dot com. See you
on the road, My DearS. My name is Craig Ferguson.
The name of this podcast is Joy. I talk to
interest in people about what brings them happiness. Hello everyone, now,
(00:47):
my guest today was one of my favorite recurring guests
on the old Late Night Show. She is a remarkably interesting,
fascinating human being with an amazing story to tell, which
if you hang around and you're about to hear she
is the check Wonder Girl. Howlina Rishkova. That's how you
(01:07):
say in check, or you could say it in America
by saying Kawlina Potskova, Yes, she enjoy there you are right?
May I say? We both don't look a day older
(01:28):
than when we were carrying on on late night.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
Oh, I think we look about a decade older, but
I think it suits us.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
How about that? Well, okay, I'll take it. I suppose
I do. I don't think you do? You look incandescent?
Are you happy? Yes?
Speaker 2 (01:44):
I'm I am very happy. Not gone, you know Czech
tradition Eastern European have to touchwood. Yes, I'm I am
actually incredibly happy, or at least you're talking to me
at a moment where I am incredibly happy. How about you?
Speaker 3 (02:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Yeah, no, pretty good. Actually I'm in a reasonable mood
and I'm reasonably happy. I feel like it's quite interesting
the last time we spoke. Whenever we spoke before, it
was always for ten minutes in front of a couple
of hundred people, and I always thought, you know, it's
such an odd thing because I felt like I knew
you and I felt like we were friendly. But we really,
(02:25):
honestly are conversations. We're just that. Yeah, it's maybe a
little bit how did you do beforehand? And that was it?
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, I know after I did your show for the
first time, all my friends sort of came away and
they were all, like, my god, you guys had such chemistry.
It's like you were old friends, and so, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
That's one of those things you remember certain people. You
were always one of my favorite guests. You still are
to this day. So let me tell you this though.
What you can't do in ten minutes is you really
can't find out about someone. And what I wanted to
talk to you about today is because we always joked
to you about you were coming from Eastern Europe and
(03:08):
stuff like that. But you correct me Ifro'm wrong, But
weren't you born when the Soviets were still in control
of Eastern Europe? Is that right?
Speaker 2 (03:15):
Actually, thanks you making me a little younger than I
actually am. I just turned sixty last week. So I
was born in sixty five and the Soviets came in
in sixty eight, so I was I was three years
old when they occupy the country. And this is what
(03:37):
sort of set up my life and the life of
my parents on a very interesting personal trajectory. Besides, you know,
the whole country going to shit.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
Yeah, I mean, do you remember the Soviets were you
were you out there by you were out there quite young.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
No, So what happened was that my parents left in
nineteen sixty eight because they knew, you know, we were
getting occupied. Everybody knew this. The tanks were rolling in,
and few brave people decided to chance it and leave.
My parents were two of those, two of those, because
(04:14):
they were you know, they were like my mother was
like twenty one, my dad was twenty four. I mean,
they're very young. And they jumped on a motorcycle and
just drove between the tanks and drove out to Austria
to a refugee camp. And they left me behind, thinking
that they would get me a couple of weeks later,
you know that, you know, once they were established in
(04:34):
the normal country, that they would just be able to
get me out. And that did not work at all.
And I was out with my grandmother, and of course,
you know, three, I have no I had no idea,
just figured, oh, my parents sort of suddenly disappeared. Nobody
told me where they went, so I sort of assumed
that they were dead, but in a kind of a
(04:56):
childish way of like, oh, my parents went to heaven,
and I couldn't, well, you know happened.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
So you you didn't think you were traumatized by it
in anyway. I feel like I feel like I feel
like this is a deep and profound childhood trauma right there.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
Oh, it's a deep and profound childhood trauma, all right. Yeah,
But it doesn't start plaguing you until you grow up
and you try to form relationships, you know, Yes, that's
when you kind of get the full impact of what
actually happened and how you included together.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Let me ask you about this, this amazing like an
odd question, but have you ever had in your life
a fear of flying?
Speaker 2 (05:40):
I did? I had. I had a huge fear of
flying for about twenty years in between not being scared
at all and then not being scared at all. Again,
very what are you asking?
Speaker 1 (05:55):
Because there's a guy there's a fear of flying guy
and old. I think he was an American airlines captain.
His name is Tom Bann and he does he helps
people who are frightened of flying. And I used to
be fighting of flying too. Oh really and yeah, and
he says that a lot of it is not about
(06:16):
flying at all, but a lot of it is to
do with when you were a kid an authority figure
that you should trust and that you placed all your
trust in lets you down badly, and later on it
manifests itself as a fear of flying. I just thought, oh, well,
this sounds like a classic. Is that really? How did
you get over it.
Speaker 2 (06:35):
As a desire to control? Yeah, I am a cot
and utter control freak. How about you?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
Pretty much the same? What I did was is I
became a control freak so much so that I got
my pilot's license, I learned to fly.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yeah, and that makes perfect sense to me.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
Yeah, isn't that funny? A lot of people that like
that's crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, now that's the way to go about it. You
can then pilot your own plane. And I what I
did was I got myself a Vestpa that I ride
around New York and that makes me feel like I'm
in control.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
You still write it around Oh yeah, yeah, yeah that
is baller? Is it the classic Italian looking thing with
a little bit in the front and river? Then yes,
fucking great, Yes, that is great.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
I've had it for like twenty eight years or something.
I used to drive my kids to school on it,
and so they were like always like the hippest kids
to you know, get off their moms by in their
little leather jackets and you know, flick your hair.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Very show cow baby.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
It's cool and it's in New York.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Are you still in New York? Yeah, you know, I
just moved back to New York.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
No, I did not know that way day. Do you
catch me up on your life? What are you? What
are you up to?
Speaker 1 (07:55):
Well, you know, I'm not doing tons. I'm doing some things,
but I've been doing live stuff because I you know,
doing stand up because I kind of after Late Night
I was like, I don't know if I ever want
to see the inside of a television studio or again.
And I'm over that now and I'm doing it. But
it was kind of it was so intense that period
(08:17):
that like ten years, I'm doing the show every night,
ten minute conversation, ten minutes. Some people you remember, like you,
I remember, of course very well. But there are people
who were on that, like I've met since who have said, oh,
you should have been on the Late Night Show and
they're like, oh, I was on it three times a
bit and so I kind of like, I do stand
(08:38):
up and I do bits and pieces and I went
to live in Scotland for a while for like five years.
I think, well, then we move. We moved back after that.
But have you ever moved back to Europe? Have you
ever spent time back there? You never gone back?
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I really love Europe, Like I feel when I go
back there, there's a part of me that feels at
home or maybe safe to some extent. But you know,
I've lived in the United States now longer than I've
lived anywhere else in fact. So see this apartment. This
(09:15):
is a rented apartment that I'm very passionate. I love
this apartment because it's the first place that I got
to move in by myself since I was like eighteen.
I chose all the wallpaper and made it look kind
of European. But right across this wall right there, Yes,
(09:35):
the very first apartment that I rented when I was
seventeen years old and I moved to New York. So
I live right next door to the seventeen year old me.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Ah, how is the seventeen year old you do it?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Well, well, she's dead.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Well let me ask you this. I put it a
different way, so you're left behind in check or what
they called I guess what did they call it?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Then it's a well, it was Czechoslovakia back then. Then
I'm trying to do the Czech Republic. And now we're
supposed to call it check. Yeah, which is what we
checks have always called it CHECKI check Chickie.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Well, I don't know any any check person I've talked
to about. I'm going to talk to a couple of
the producer of the show, Tomas, who's check.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
Yeah, I can know by his last name.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Yeah, it's called Zachopalzo.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Bill means somebody who was buried.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
Yeah, it's I think it's it's undertaker or something, isn't it,
which is perfect for him.
Speaker 2 (10:43):
Poor man.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
No, No, he's great, he's just he's a he's a cheerful,
dark soul.
Speaker 2 (10:50):
But I think we all are.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Yeah, the Czech people are quite like that, right, quite
cheerful but quite well.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Look, we've been occupied for our entire existence. So like
there's a there's a you learned that life is best
lived with incredibly low expectations, and that things can turn
on the dime, and that you know things are happy
today and tomorrow somebody will come in and wreck your life.
Speaker 1 (11:17):
So this is amazing. It's like talking to a very
beautiful version of Tomas.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
We're all the same.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Hello. This is Greig Ferguson and I want to let
you know I have a brand new stand up comedy
special out now on YouTube. It's called I'm So Happy,
and I would be so happy if you checked it out.
To watch the special, just go to my YouTube channel
at the Graig Ferguson Show and is this right there?
Just click it and play it and it's free. I
(11:54):
can't look. I'm not going to come around your house
and show you how to do it. If you can't
do it, then you can have it. But if you
can figure it out, yours. So what happened then? Did
you ever reunite with your parents? Oh?
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Well, it's quite quite a bit of a story. I
guess you can always edit it out right.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
No, it's not at all, but.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
You're welcome to if you want to. So what happened
was that my parents. My parents made it into Austria.
They didn't get shot, so that was nice. I was
left with my grandmother and then from the Austrian refugee
camp they got sent to Sweden, which was a big
you know, a place that was hospitable to refugees at
(12:37):
that point, and then they were trying to get me
out and they couldn't. The borders were closed and you know,
that was over. So my parents, again being very young
and very photogenic, decided to sort of raise awareness for
their cause of like not being able to get their child.
(12:57):
And so they started with doing a hung strike in
front of the Stockholm Embassy, the Czech embassy in Stockholm,
to tell you who, get people empathetic and sign you know,
sign on a whatever lists of people protesting the Czech
government not allowing their daughter to be released. And the
(13:19):
Czech government did absolutely nothing, but the Swedes really liked us.
They got kind of whipped into a frenzy of helping
these two young, beautiful people to get their daughter out.
So I became sort of a cause celeb of course, figures.
It was like my early career. I was a famous
(13:41):
political refugee and I became famous in Sweden as like
little Paulina, poor little Paulina.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
Oh no, I didn't no idea, So how did did
they get you out? The Swedes got you.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Out there kind of eventually, but three years my parents
were using all the press and all the me and
they were on TV and eventually a Swedish magazine. Actually,
I believe the checks sent them my parents a letter
saying that because they hadn't claimed me for three years,
I was going to be adopted to a suitable family.
(14:17):
So that of course would mean that they would lose
me forever. And they did sort of this desperate last
attempt in which a Swedish newspaper funded getting two Swedish
pilots and my mother to go and kidnap me on
my way from school. They were going to kidnap me.
They had a false passport for me. My mother had
(14:39):
a false passport claiming she was one of the pilot's
wife and that they were just coming to the Czech
Republic to look at planes to purchase, and while they
did that, they were going to grab me and pack
me off into a small plane. Of course, nobody considered
how I would feel about this, not having seen my
mother in four years and didn't know who she was anymore.
(15:02):
But they so, and the newspaper had, like, what do
you call it? A you know, it was their story.
It was, yeah, there's an exclusive story. And so my
mom and those two pilots, my mom had a wig
and glasses and the false passport, and they land in
(15:23):
the Czech Republic or Czechoslovakia. They rent a car and
they're driving on the way to my little town to
get me on my way to school, and they get
busted for speeding. Yeah uh, and so they get taken
to a police station interrogated. Apparently somebody might have written
(15:46):
to the authorities that my mother was going to try
to kidnap me.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
So so the whole thing unspooled and that they were
all put in jail, the Swedish pilots and my mother.
My mother was six months pregnant with my baby brother.
And now this newspaper had gotten a way better story
than they even bargained for.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Oh my god, I know. Yeah, but what goes on?
How long are they in jail? What happened?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well, my mother is in jail for about three months,
and then because there was you know, the Sweden was
you know, it was all our story. Oh my god,
Anna Broskova got caught. She's in jail, she's pregnant, she's
not gotten to see Paulina, Like you know, this is
like a huge story. So she was given amnesty. About
(16:40):
three months into this, she got given an amnesty and
so she was allowed to come and stay at my
grandmother's house with me and grandma under house arrest for
the next three years. The Swedish pilots I believe, were
in jail for like ten years.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
What yeah, baby brother, and your baby brother is born,
your dad is still in Sweden.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Dad is still in Sweden, and my dad is sort
of carrying on, you know, doing all the interviews. He's
meeting with all of Palmer, the Swedish Prime minister, to
see if there's a way that all of Palmer can
move anything to get us out, and there's like and
this is going on for another three years of this
(17:26):
sort of back and forth, Swedish newspaper men coming into
the Czech Republic to take pictures of us that they
can then publish in magazines in Sweden. And at the
end of those three years, so in nineteen seventy three,
I believe there the Swedish hockey team was supposed to
play the checks in like the International Friendships Games or something,
(17:47):
and they refuse to play the checks unless they released us,
and all of Palmer refused to make a States visit
unless they released us, and then they finally and then
they pouted us out, say in nineteen seventy three day
Tom's passport and said get out and don't ever come back.
And then that was that's crazy.
Speaker 1 (18:07):
No, you see, this is something that doesn't come up
in a ten minute conversation. So you're by this thing,
what nine years old? Almost?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yes, so I was nine when we left the check repart.
Speaker 1 (18:20):
Right, and now you become a Sweedish citizen, I guess right.
And families reunited.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Yeah, for about a week or so. Because my dad
had found some other woman while I'm alm was gone,
so he promptly left. And then mom was sort of
a single parent and she was having a bit of
a nervous breakdown, and so it was me and my
little brother kind of left to our you know, own devices.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
As they say, this is a movie polylievable.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I know, but every time I tell somebody the story,
they're kind of like, yeah, it's kind of too much.
You know, did just give me half of that story?
The full story is? It's unbelievable.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
And then you know what, I think maybe it's not
a movie. I think it's like ten episodes on Netflix,
that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
Yeah, I think it has to be a limited TV
series thing.
Speaker 1 (19:14):
Yeah, I think it is you ever, because then after that,
if you're like you're now like nine, ten years old,
you're in Sweden, and by the time you're what seventeen,
you're eleven in New York.
Speaker 2 (19:29):
Well by the time I'm fifteen, I'm a model in
Paris on my own.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
How does that happen?
Speaker 4 (19:35):
Is it?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Because your famous little Paulina is now growing up? She's
very beautiful and actually she's not grown up, she's only fifteen.
Why is she going to Paris?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Well, because models start very young. I think I think
we know that.
Speaker 1 (19:50):
That seems very very young, doesn't you know?
Speaker 2 (19:53):
Well, yes, it's very very young. But I was I
had a girlfriend who really was interested in fashion, and
she wanted to be a fashion photographer. And mind you,
we're like teens, you know, like little teens do the selfies,
you know these days. So she sort of she would
take pictures of me on her little instematic pocket camera,
(20:14):
and then she sent those pictures into some scout in
the city where we lived in lund in Sweden, to
ask what she thought of her photography, like, oh, do
you you know, how do I become a fashion photographer?
And the lady got back to her saying yeah, you know,
photographyish photography. Who's the girl? How old is she? And
how tall is she?
Speaker 1 (20:33):
Wow?
Speaker 2 (20:34):
And she introduced me to John Cassiblanket when I was fourteen.
He took a look. He said, would you like to
go to Paris over the summer? And I was like, uh, yeah,
And so I was sent to Paris over some Now
it was supposed to be just a summer job in
all fairness, Yeah, but you know I got to Paris
(20:56):
that I was fifteen, I was really four. I started
working kind of right away, and by the time the
summer was over, I had traveled like I had gone
to Morocco, I had gone to Japan on my own
by myself. They just they would hand me a plane
ticket and say go, and I would go. And going
(21:19):
going back to school seemed boring.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, no, I understand it, does it do? I mean, look,
I'm not your father, as you well know, but it
does worry me. Wait what Yeah, it worries me though
the idea of that fifteen year old sixteen year old
Paulina is two and the fashion world is not renowned
for being full of scrupulous characters.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
Kind men who want what best, fatherly type.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
Yeah, well, how how was it? Did you how did
you manage? Were you okay?
Speaker 2 (21:57):
Well with okay meaning you know, did I survive? And
not get right like, clearly you survived? But yes, yes,
clearly you survived and clearly you thrived. But was it
a very difficult time? Was at a very unpleasant time? Well?
You know what it was both, to be honest, it
was being fifteen and completely unsupervised and making more money
(22:17):
in three months and your parents making a year is
not a terrible place to be at times. And then
at times, you know, when you're by yourself in your
little apartment and you are scared and you're young and
you don't really know there's no real safety for you,
(22:38):
than it's scary. So it was both. It was sort
of a time of extremes. I think, you know, it's.
Speaker 1 (22:46):
An interesting thing as well, because if you are and
you clearly are, I mean, I'm sure you're at peace
with this now. But you're very beautiful. And so when
people are very beautiful, I've noticed that something's other people
will punish them in bed, they'll be quite cruel to them.
They become a little strange. Particularly, I think you know,
(23:09):
they always say things like beauty's only skin deep and
it's not really that valuable, and what you have is
just luck and kind of downplay it all the time,
which I think is kind of I don't think that's necessary.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Really, well, is it necessary?
Speaker 1 (23:27):
No?
Speaker 2 (23:27):
I think it's It's just it's a human emotion when somebody,
you know, how we all compare one and ourselves to
other people. We can't help it. It's a biological function comparison. Right,
where do I stand in society? And when you are
seen as an attractive and young woman, by the way,
(23:48):
you have to be yelp.
Speaker 1 (23:49):
The nice thing.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
About being older is that I don't get that anymore.
Nobody gives a shit. It's like, you can be attractive
because you know, guys are not going to go for
me anymore because I'm too old.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah. I don't know if that's entirely realistic, but fair enough.
I'll go with you. And the uh, thank you. So
you're doing these modeling assignments and stuff like that, and
you are clearly again all this information from the world
that you are young and you're beautiful, and that is
a commodity, and so you what do you do? You
take it to New York that's what you decide to do,
(24:22):
or did the job take you there?
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Yeah, No, it's you know, it's there's a very small
there's very little decision making when you're a fifteen year
old child, you do you sort of the nice thing
about it is that you're endlessly flexible, right, so right
wherever they put you, you just kind of go with
it and you go, oh, well, that's this is the
way it's supposed to be. Have you ever seen Felini's eight.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
And a half a long time ago, like a long
time ago.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Well, I just I just rewatched it the other day,
and it's a really kind of a cool movie and
it's beautiful. Yeah, but it really is. He's kind of
like the insane ravings of a middle aged man who
finds himself, you know, doesn't know where where he's going
next career wise, and all these women that he's disappointed,
(25:14):
and you know, a man in menopause. And I just
could watch the whole movie. I thought, Oh, like, I
feel like I watched the film about my father.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
It's funny. Yeah, I know what you mean. Did you
kind of reunite with your father? Did you manage to
form a relationship with him at all? Is he still around?
He's still around.
Speaker 2 (25:37):
I made an attempt a few times here and there
to see if we could perhaps have some sort of relationship,
and then I always sort of came away with he's
not really worth it. So no, no, okay, it does
set you up for a lifetime full of looking for
(26:00):
the wrong man.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Do you think you did that? You were looking for
the wrong man for sure? Yeah, dear, that is upsetting.
So you're in New York and but like, by this time,
you know through all of these you know this is
going on. You're not one of the supermodels, right, and
that's what they were calling you girls like and you
were the kind of well you're the first wave of
(26:23):
the super mussy. Guess you kind of wear right Damn.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
I mean, you know, I can't toot my own horn
because I'm Eastern European. But thank you for thank you
for mentioning it yourself.
Speaker 1 (26:34):
Yes, so does what does that due to a person
of obvious intelligence that the message you're getting is that
you have this this weird power, which is is clearly marketable.
You're very successful, you're making good money and your world famous,
(26:57):
and all you have to do is be you.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
Well, actually, it's not so much.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Well, it's not about it.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
In some ways, it's simpler. All you have to do
is show up. But whether you're you or somebody else
entirely different inside really doesn't matter. What it does is
that for a woman, it sort of sets you up
for feeling like the only thing of importance about you
is the way you look, so any needs or wants
(27:33):
or desires or thoughts that you have are absolutely unimportant,
and it sort of reassures you that that is in
fact the case. So I think a lot of models
we have a hard time trying to find just find
(27:54):
out who we are, you know, who we are outside
this facade that everybody has sort of narrowed down to
just being a shell. How did you find yourself? How
did you find out where you were?
Speaker 1 (28:16):
Was there a process that you went through that was
conscious or did it? Did it just happened or I mean,
I feel like I assume. I don't know why I
assume this, but it seems to me like you seem
to me like someone who reads, who is connected, who
is interested in the arts, and then politically motivated as well.
(28:39):
Would that be correct?
Speaker 2 (28:41):
That would be correct, Although it didn't seem to matter
very much to literally anybody but perhaps myself.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Well that's good though, that it matters to you.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
It's also infinitely frustrating.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
Oh I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure, because no one is
going to take you seriously about anything you say at
all at any point.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
Correct.
Speaker 1 (29:06):
That's so fucking mad. Yeah, fucking mad. I don't know
how anyone could put up with that. Did you find
yourself getting angry?
Speaker 2 (29:17):
I think there was a fair bit of anger, but
I also I'm also scared of anger, so I I
think I would reduce that anger to contempt, a sort
of a slow, simmering contempt for all, for everybody.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, that's that's actually quite cool. I think I as
I sort of seething contempt for everyone. I have to say,
I find that quite attractive that I could have.
Speaker 2 (29:50):
So that's something about your own childhood trauma.
Speaker 1 (29:54):
Yeah, no, no kidding. But you did find I mean
you you you got married and you had a family
in New York City. That all happened to you.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
I did. I met my husband when I was nineteen
and he was forty one, and he lied about it
and said he was thirty seven.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
Like that was a big difference. When did you find
out the truth presumably before the first.
Speaker 2 (30:18):
Child, before we got married. Good, so like five years later,
oh wow, where he had to come clean, you know,
because I was going to see the bur certificateself, like
he couldn't really pretend anymore. And I kept thinking, you know,
for those five years, I thought things just weren't working
(30:38):
out timeline wise, you know, like how old his oldest
child was versus how old he said he was. And
I kept trying to go back already, go so how
old is Christopher again? And when did you say you
have him? And he would sort of skirt by those conversations.
But uh, yeah, I was very much in love with
(30:59):
my husban because I feel like I had found well,
you know how they say that's becoming a cliche now,
but you marry your unfinished business?
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Is that true?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
Oh yeah, absolutely, it's absolutely true. I found a man
who with some serious narcissistic tendencies, which both of my
parents have, and so you know, I married. I married
my parents and tried to convert them into actually liking me,
(31:31):
and it worked. It worked for a really long time.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
That's fascinating. Obviously, what I'm doing is I'm going back
to my own romantic history going, Oh my god, I
hate this.
Speaker 2 (31:45):
How many times have you been married?
Speaker 1 (31:46):
Now? I'm on number three?
Speaker 2 (31:50):
Well, lucky three, but.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
We've been married for a while. I mean, I think
you married again, didn't you? No, no, you didn't marry,
but you're you're in a relationship now.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I'm in a relationship.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Yeah, okay, you guys gonna get married.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Well after my husband died and all the ship that happened.
Speaker 1 (32:12):
I heard about. Some of that I wasn't gonna make
but yeah, welcome.
Speaker 2 (32:16):
To you because everybody else knows it.
Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, I just didn't want to make you roll around
in it, you know what I mean. Everybody gets ship
happened in their life. I didn't want to, like, it's
none of my business. I how are you with that
kind of thing? Because I get very uncomfortable in my
lane and work. I'm going to talk to you, know,
I talked to you, and you've gone through some public,
you know, difficulties. I've talked to other people who have
(32:39):
gone through ablem through who use like doesn't have a difficulty,
and I'm still I feel a bit seedy. When you
talk to people about the difficulties of their life, it
doesn't I'd rather keep it more kind of superficial, I suppose. Well,
not because just because I don't know, I just don't
(33:00):
feel like I'm not a journalist, do you know what
I mean, I'm not trying to You don't seem bothered
by discussing that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
No, you know, what I've noticed is that I'm really curious.
I'm really genuinely curious. And by sort of airing out
my life very forthrightly and openly on Instagram, which is
(33:29):
I did by accident, I was just so fucking desperate.
I didn't really know what else to do. It brought
all these connections to me other people that maybe had
similar experiences, and it sort of opens up all these
channels of connection, which I really appreciate. And so it's
a different lifestyle. It's a different life. It's that that
(33:54):
thing that you like so much, that the contempt that, yeah,
that I've let go of, Yeah, and healthy. I am
much happier for it. Yes, I mean I was very
good at it. I had lots and lots of years
of it.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
But also, you know, you're an Eastern European supermodel. It's
kind of a good look to be sort of haughty.
You know, it's kind of I hate everyone.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Just leave me alone?
Speaker 1 (34:25):
You are?
Speaker 2 (34:27):
You know I am far superior to you. Yeah, but
that was never me.
Speaker 1 (34:32):
That was never I don't get that from you at all.
Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (34:35):
I'm essentially a very kind of goofy nerdy. I know.
It's like all pretty women say they are nerdy, but
I truly am. I read a lot like I'm not.
I'm not fabulous.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Yeah, I don't know people that read a look and
be fabulous. You're pretty fabolus. I think you're pretty fabulous.
What do you read? What are you drawing to? Do
you read historical fiction? Do you read hardcore physics manuals?
What are you growing to?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Okay, so maybe a little lighter on the hardcore physics
manuals okay, uh huh. But otherwise I read pretty much everything.
I'm kind of indiscriminate in food and reading, but no
longer in my men.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
No. No, I think that's that's a very wise choice
about What about writing? Because you wrote a very interesting
article was the New York Times? You wrote that America
you made me a famous?
Speaker 2 (35:38):
Yeah? Times?
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Yeah, yeah, some pretty sway. Are you writing more? Are
you writing books? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (35:45):
So I think when I I think when I was
on your show, I had I think I had published
my novel. You had published a novel. Because I read
your novel, which was very good. I was going to
ask you, are you are you writing more?
Speaker 1 (36:00):
You know what? I've been writing a follow up novel
to that novel for the past fifteen years. I think
it's hard. It's hard, Well, you have to write. Did
you write another novel? Have you read another novel?
Speaker 2 (36:14):
Not a novel? I wrote a book of personal essays
that was that came out two years ago, and that
was actually incredibly rewarding it. I wrote it in three months. Wow,
I know, a fellow writer can Yeah, I am, Yeah,
that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
What did you just binge it? Did you just like
sixteen hours a day of that kind of thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (36:37):
Yeah, every day, sixteen hours. I wanted to see if
I could do it.
Speaker 4 (36:41):
Yeah, the challenge of it, and I could do it,
so I'll never do it again. But that was it
was kind of crazy, but I did do it, and
it was you know it was, but it was in
the time. It was after my husband's death and all
of the shit that happened and COVID and losing my
house and all of this stuff, and so all the
(37:05):
things I wanted to write about were like right there.
You know, they were all occupying my brain for the
last two years anyway, so it was just kind of like.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Slash the vein, bleed all over the paper.
Speaker 1 (37:17):
And I totally understand it's a great way to find
some kind of relief if you're in distress, psychic distress,
to write. I think somehow. I think it's a little
bit to do what we talked about right at the beginning.
It's about control that if you write it down, you're
(37:37):
in charge of it, you know. I mean when I
wrote that novel, I was going through a divorce. It's
very difficult, and you know, I had no control over it,
you know, I didn't know where it was going next.
But if I could go to the book and I
write a book, I knew where everyone was going to
go because I put them there, and it kind of helps.
(38:00):
I think you write more.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
Oh oh oh, absolutely. I mean I kind of feel
like writing is what I really do now, even on
my Instagram thread. What I really use it as is
like an outlet for my writing for you know, things
I think of that I want to put down I
(38:23):
sort of to test the fact that it has to
be followed with a picture and now more recently videos
that is I mean, it's it's all completely narcissistic anyway,
but like it's really pushing the envelope and it's like,
but that's I appreciate the fact that I get to
(38:44):
have a voice and I get to use it in
the way that I want.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you. What about the like
social media, because when I was on Instagram I'm not
on anymore. I used to follow you on an Instagram
time would see your posts and stuff like that with
your you know, anger and stuff, and it was, you know,
it was great, but I didn't I've come off I
have like people who do it, no, because I kind
(39:09):
of interact with the amount of I don't know. I
just don't like it. It feels like unfiltered negativity, pooring
at me. I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (39:18):
Well, it can be that, and then it also be
like sort of unquestionable positivity, which.
Speaker 1 (39:25):
You also true, that's true, And I also don't know
if I like that.
Speaker 2 (39:30):
Yeah, no, I know, I don't like it. I like
whenever somebody says, you know, actually, my boyfriend was saying
that the other day. It's like, Oh, I'm so proud
of you, and I was like, and then he sort
of stopped and said, you don't like when I say that,
do you. I was like, no, No, that that's a
very blanket statement to me. That doesn't mean anything. It's
just it's more about you than it is about me. Yeah,
(39:55):
and that sort of unfiltered adoration that you can get
off of social as well as unfiltered hate. They're both
kind of in the same basket of they need to
be put aside. They're not they don't matter.
Speaker 1 (40:10):
Yeah, I'm complicated. It's a complicated emotion and I'm not
quite sure because you want to be nice to people
who like you, and you don't want to be nice
to people to dislike you. And the truth is, I
don't think it really mars that much, you know. It's
one of those things. In fact, it was Tomas who
said it because I was getting upset about something on Twitter.
This is how long ago it was. It was Twitter
years ago, and he said to me, with his Eastern
(40:33):
European accent, if you don't look, it's not there. It's
kind of like, isn't it. It's not there, it's not
it's not a thing. If you don't pay any attention
to it, it disappears. Yeah. Well, very few things in life
are true like that. You know. It's like if I
look away, it no longer exists. But I think social
media has that. You know. It's like if I don't
(40:56):
look at it, it's not there.
Speaker 2 (40:58):
Well, yes, which is true, but then you're not quite
and I don't and I don't know that this matters.
But that's what social media does, uh, is that it
kind of plugs you into not if you only follow
people that like you or live in your bubble, but
when you separate it and look wider, it does sort
(41:19):
of queue you into sort of the national malaise or
the feelings of like where people are at. I find
that very interesting sort of it's just like an anthropology experiment,
you know.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
Yeah, I get it. It's like you're a little market
research company. I understand, but it's uh, I don't know.
I think you've you've done better evolving out of the
control freak area than I have.
Speaker 2 (41:50):
I Like, I don't know, it's still need into control.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
I'm aware of it, and I I don't need to
control it. But I think Honestly, I don't know if
you can relate to this at all, but I think
I'm actually quite shy, quite reticent. I don't really like,
you know, I feel it's like, not so much shy.
That's not right. I think it's unseemly to talk yourself up,
(42:22):
and I feel like when I see other people doing
it as well, I find it kind of I don't
really want to see you saying how great you are.
It feels kind of like dumb. And that's why when
you said you had content for everything, I was like, oh,
that's good.
Speaker 2 (42:39):
I'm not the only one.
Speaker 1 (42:41):
No, I don't have content for everything. I really don't.
I think I'm quite a joyful person, but I get on.
I'm a Scottish Protestant. I'm uncomfortable nearly all the time.
Speaker 2 (42:53):
Yes, oh my god, I know that so well. Like
but being a I mean, I guess at the East
and Catholic. Yes, being uncomfortable nearly all the time is
sort of what we've been programmed to.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
Be, right kind of. There is a there is a
moral kind of grace to feeling bad. That it's a plus.
Speaker 2 (43:17):
Yes, you're a good person if you feel bad about it.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
If you feel bad. Yeah, it's kind of weird, right,
It's a very weird thing. Look, we're out of time
for this thing. Are you let me ask you this though,
Have you done a part? Are you doing a podcast yet?
Because you know that's next you have to do a podcast.
Speaker 2 (43:35):
Well, you know, everybody and their mother is doing a podcast.
Speaker 1 (43:38):
No offense to you tell me about it. I've got
ten left on that no twelve left of this one,
and then I have contractually obliged to do no more.
And let me tell you I'll be doing no more. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (43:52):
Well, okay, So since you were asking me about podcasts,
do you enjoy doing them?
Speaker 1 (43:59):
You know I do. But the way that we are
talking now is I would rather have this see I
let me backtrack it a little bit and answer it,
and I kind of round about way. I feel like
when I do a podcast like this, when I talk
to someone like you like this on a zoom call
(44:20):
or whatever we're calling it now, I'm as good as
anyone else. But I feel like if you and I
are sitting in the same room and we're talking to
each other, I'm better than most and I feel like
I can do this thing better. Not over the zoom
so if I continue to do it, I want to
(44:42):
do it so that we can all be in we
can be in the same room, because there's something about
the nature of human interaction, which it's okay. I mean,
we're talking fine, and I'm not holding anything back, and
I don't get a sense you are either, But somehow
there is a it's just deffinite to be in the room.
It creates a different thing.
Speaker 2 (45:03):
I agree. I mean, I think that this is where technology,
as it joins us together, keeps us apart.
Speaker 1 (45:09):
I mean absolutely, yeah, I think that's exactly so.
Speaker 2 (45:15):
So you're not going to do a podcast, then I'm
actually also more interested in talking to real people rather
than than zooming with people. And I've never liked phone calls.
I still really Oh no, I hate them. Is it
such a waste of time?
Speaker 1 (45:33):
Oh my god, just say what you have to say
and get off the phone. That's that's please.
Speaker 2 (45:38):
Because I can't see how you look on the phone.
I can't see your expressions. I can't see the twinkle
or the disdain in your eye that I need to
see for conversation.
Speaker 1 (45:52):
Yeah, it's exactly I feel about it. I'm like, oh
my god, I love talking to people. I love, They
say an island the crack. I love the crack, you know.
I love joking and laughing and making fun of each
other and flirting and being silly at all of these.
I love all of that. But somehow, in this environment
(46:14):
it's nearly there. But I think I just prefer it
when it's, you know, the live show, right down to
the sense of even, by the way, doing stand up comedy.
I don't mind doing it on TV, and I don't
mind recording a stand up special. But the truth is,
the best shows are always in the theater or the club,
(46:35):
when nobody's got a camera. Those are the best shows.
Speaker 2 (46:39):
And still, I mean, even if you're recording it on
a camera or whatever, you still are performing it, not
to the camera, but to an audience.
Speaker 1 (46:47):
Right, yeah, But the camera doesn't get everything. It just doesn't.
It doesn't get at all. It doesn't get everything. And
I think, you know, we may be the last of
a dying breed where you know, the the you know
that what we're talking about will make no sense to
anyone under the age of fifty. I don't.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
I know, it's already starting to be a bit like that.
What's your how old is your youngest child fourteen. Okay,
so so your fourteen year old will look at you this,
I'm sure my the way my children looked at me
and said, mom, were you alive before computers?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (47:27):
Yeah, yes we were.
Speaker 3 (47:29):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Are you a boomer or a gen xer?
Speaker 1 (47:31):
I think I'm actually a boomer. I'm nineteen sixty two,
so I'm a boomer. Yeah, So fucking get off my lawn,
you ass all. Oh okay, you did it, and you're
a dead exer right.
Speaker 3 (47:49):
Yes, I think gen extra Yes, yes, we're the ones
that are truly sort of in the we stravel both sides,
I think, more so than anybody else.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
Sorry, Whereas whereas me I all I do is remember
the war and and when Lord Morris didn't have engines.
Speaker 2 (48:17):
Think the Andrews sisters, the boy of company B.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
All right, get out of here. It's lovely to talk
to you. I'll talk to you in person soon, please,
I think that would be really fun. That would be fun.
That would be fun. Right, It's lovely to see it.
Speaker 2 (48:37):
Was really nice to see you too on this greeny screen.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
I know it'll look better in computer land.
Speaker 2 (48:43):
Yeah, I'm surely it will but not me.
Speaker 1 (48:47):
Yeah, I know you. You will get out of here. Goodbye.
That's the anniversial.
Speaker 2 (48:52):
Okay, okay, fine
Speaker 3 (49:00):
Apat Popo paper to per
Host
Craig Ferguson
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