Emma Watson EXCLUSIVE: The Story She Has Not Shared Until Now

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I realized have the career and the life that looks
like the dream. But are you really happy? Emma? Are
you really healthy? And have to admit to myself that
I wasn't was one of the scariest things I've ever
had to do.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
The number one health and wellness podcast Shed j Shenny
Shed Emma, welcome to on Purpose. I'm so grateful that
you're here. And you know you've kind of been out
of the public eye for a while now. Yes, and
don't do that many interviews. I've watched the interviews you
have done even before we plan to do this, and

(00:40):
I wanted to ask from an intention point almost why now?
Why today? Why here?

Speaker 1 (00:45):
I think I mentioned but I read your book because
my dear friend Nupah told me that I should, and
every now and again I would see you come up
on my feed. I don't spend much time on Instagram anymore,
but when I did, I just felt like you were
having a different conversation. And it's not that I have

(01:05):
stopped doing interviews because I want to hide myself away.
I think it's because I wanted to be able to
have a certain type of conversation that I didn't seem
able to find a space for and so I called
Nooper and said, I think I just reached out to
Jay to see if you would let me come into
this podcast on Monday. And she was like, I've been

(01:28):
waiting for this. I wondered when you would do this.
I was like, how did you know I was going
to do it. She's like, I don't know. I just
felt like this was coming. So here I am, and
you said yes, and the timing worked. I contacted you
last week and it's Monday, and so.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
Well from well, that means the world to me. Truly,
I'm so grateful for that because the few interactions and
conversations we've had since then, and you've sent me a
few things to read over, whether it's journals or reflections,
and honestly, I think I just said it to you
a few moments ago, and I mean it, even if
we weren't having this conversation today and you just sent
me those things to reflect on myself, that would have

(02:05):
already been a gift. And so the opportunity to actually
sit with you and to talk about these things and
have this space to have a conversation that you feel
you haven't had before means the world to me, and
so thank you for trusting me, and I look forward
to getting to know you so much better. But let's
dive in. I wanted I wanted to start by asking you, like,
you said something there that was really beautiful because you

(02:26):
stopped for a moment. Then you said, it's easier to
be honest, and I was like, I wanted to understand
what that meant to you and how that feels.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Such a big part of my job was trying to
think three steps ahead of how everything that I would
say would be could negatively impact the film that I
was trying to do justice to and do service to
and make sure that people understood what the director had intended.
And I felt this enormous sense of responsibility all the

(02:54):
time to honor so many people's work that put to
gather something like a film or you know, even to
some degree. I just did a fragrance with Prada and
it's the first perfume bottle that you can like refill,
And I don't know, I take my job seriously, I guess,

(03:14):
and so interviews to me felt a lot like chess,
and it required so much energy, and I think, what's
nice about the way that I'm showing up today is
I'm just showing up for myself and for once, I
actually I'm not here to speak on behalf of anyone
else or anything else other than myself, which is unusual.

Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah. I think it's such a fascinating thing because as
a viewer, even before I got closer to the industry,
as a viewer, everything's made to feel in traditional media
so easy, and it has levity and it feels like
you're getting someone's real personality, and then you realize that
you are. There's definitely reality to it and truth to it. Yes,

(04:00):
same time, naturally, it's work, Yeah, and there's a job,
and I think it's not as and you can shed
more light on this. I don't think it's always as
insidious or as dark as people may think it is.
But there's just it's a job and it's work, and
there's results that matter the right one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
And I think within those contexts, everyone is trying to
be as authentic as they humanly can be. But there's
something about I think it's what I mentioned earlier about
why I felt like this was a good space. There's
something inherently written into certain types of forms of media
which is that it doesn't matter what intentional or how

(04:39):
authentically you want to show up, but the form somehow
doesn't allow it. Yeah, to some degree, And I've become
obsessed with this recently. I've been looking at, Okay, what
is written into the form of something like Twitter or
Instagram or TikTok, or a podcast versus or a photograph
versus a film versus a piece of writing, And it's
really interesting to see what a different medium or different

(05:02):
form allows or doesn't allow, and or like actually creates
or encourages. I've never done a podcast before, but I
love I think what I love about it is the
is the intimacy of it. It's like, I feel like
people listen to podcasts when they're like I certainly do anyway,
Like first thing in the morning, when I'm taking my
shower or I'm going on my walk or I'm making

(05:22):
my breakfast. It's really like personal, intimate time. And I
think the long form version of these kinds of conversations
allows for such a different kind of discussion that I
don't think was possible before.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, absolutely, I can agree with you more. I was
going to ask you, actually, because I want everyone to
get up to date with where you are now, Like
what is what is your day to day life look like?
You just said, like I wake up in a shower
and I've go on a walk, Like what does your
day to day life look like right now? And what
makes what's it made of? And one of the things
that you love and look forward to.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
I recently started riding a bicycle, and yes, I said
riding my school before my driving ban, but now it's
acually for titus. But I also ride a bicycle for
that reason.

Speaker 2 (06:04):
But that was mainstream news. Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
I was getting phone called like it's on the BBC,
It's on international worldwide news. I was like, my shame
is everywhere? This is I mean what I say, it's
I don't know. I think in a funny way. What
the sweetest result of it was getting so many messages
from being people being like, happen to me too, I

(06:27):
feel you. This is awful. It sucks, which was kind
of nice in a way, but yeah, totally do you
need a left It's like, actually yes, but I think again,
it's funny, like I went from when you work on movies,
I don't know if people know this, but like they
literally will not ensure you to drive yourself to work.
I've asked so many times, you have to be driven.

(06:49):
You have to be driven. It's like not a choice,
and especially because they need you there, you know, down
to the minute, basically depending on what they have going on.
And so I went from basically only driving myself on
week ordering holiday and then when I became student, driving
myself all the time. And yeah, I did not have
the experience or skills clearly which I now will and

(07:12):
and do. But I think again, this was one of
these like awkward transitions I made from kind of living
this like very very structured life to living a life
where I was like, Okay, I guess I'm going to
get myself to this place and I'm going to like
do this thing that I've basically not done since I
was ten years old. So it's been a discovery and

(07:33):
a journey that's been Yeah, I guess humbling because on
a movie SAT I'm able to do all of these
like extremely complex things stunts saying dance like do this thing,
do that whatever, and I'm like, yep, don't worry about it, guys,
no worries. I've got you. And then I get home
and I'm like Okay, Emma, you teom money able to

(07:53):
remember keys, you get money, able to like keep yourself
at thirty miles an hour in a thirty mins, I'll
speed limit, like you don't seem able to do some
pretty like basic life things. And it was definitely kind
of Yeah. I had days where I just wanted to
turn around to people and be like I used to
be good at things. Okay, I used to be really

(08:15):
good at things. And I know it doesn't look like
that right now, but I used to. I can do
things normally. So yeah, it's been it's been humbling.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
I feel I feel like all of us. I feel
like all of us can relate to that, though, really,
because doesn't everyone forget their keys their wallet, doesn't know
where things are like these are these are like series.
And by the way, I was, I think I was
three points away from losing my license before I moved
to the States.

Speaker 1 (08:41):
Thank you for that confession. I appreciate that.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
So because I was in the States for I've been
in the States now for nine years, and I think
it happened just but then all the points get wiped
off and I think I'm now back to six points.
I spent two months in London a year. Okay, every
time I go back, I seem to.

Speaker 1 (08:58):
Very much better.

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah, I'm confessing to.

Speaker 1 (09:03):
A lot of people. Actually, a lot of people have
like taken it upon themselves to come and confess to me,
which I've found like very like very endearing and like
really really appreciate it. But no, I think, you know,
I think something I've been realizing is we most of
us live in a state of like, I'm just trying
to kind of figure it out and keep it together,

(09:26):
and the only thing that is different between us is
people's willingness to be honest about that, the degree to
which they can admit to actually I'm just like scrabbling
around trying to keep the reasons together versus oh yeah,
I know, everything's amazing and everything's incredible and I'm having

(09:47):
the best day ever and aren't you? And you know
so I do love the people who are just willing
to be like, yeah, it's it's not going so well today,
I'm like, very amazing. What a good starting point? Like,
I don't know, failure as a starting point feels like
I feel like attempting things is so compelling, and of

(10:10):
course success is wonderful, But I love to see people
who are like, I'm really bad at this, but I'm
going to try. I love you. That's everything to me.

Speaker 2 (10:20):
And that seems to be becoming harder and harder now,
Like that desire to attempt something that you would be
good at, Yeah, because it's exposed, or because everyone will
see it, or because everyone will hear about it. Yeah,
talking about attempting things, I mean you're currently studying, right,
you're learning?

Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yes, yes, Well, two things I want to say there
is I think in a way I was sort of
I mean, I'm someone who's always cared about vulnerability and authenticity,
but I think I was also forced into it to
a degree that that maybe even I wasn't ready for,
and that like I just started so young that like

(10:56):
I had to learn in public. I had to make
mistakes in public and say, oh, okay, now I've learned this,
and I had to be willing to go back and
be like, hmm, like there are some gats here and
here's what I know now. And I think people's I
agree with you. I think it's becoming increasingly difficult to

(11:17):
learn in public and continuing to learn. I mean, I
think that's one of the reasons why I have gone
back to school and why I continue to do it
is because I want to make sure that I have
things to say that are worth saying. And I think
you can only do that if you take a minute
sometimes and.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
Listen to some.

Speaker 1 (11:38):
People who aren't you, you know, like not just the
sound of my own, my own wonderful voice. So yeah,
it's been it's been great. And I think also I
needed to I wanted to be inspired. I think being
around my favorite piece has been being around young people
who still believe that the world is malleable and things

(11:58):
are changeable, and and that like anything can be done
is such important energy. There's so much dystopian fiction at
the moment, and dystopian movies so dark, and I'm just like,
what happened to thinking about the utopia? What happened to
like planning for the best case scenario? Like where where

(12:21):
did we lose? Yeah? Vision, excitement, imagination, possibility. So I
think it's been. Yeah, it's been wonderful to be around
young people and just to sit there and listen. Yeah,
do you ever I mean, you clearly read so much.
Do you have to take yourself away to do it?

(12:41):
In order to be able to do it? Do you
have to call it an off time? Like, how are
you still managing to study and learn because that seems
like it's important to you.

Speaker 2 (12:49):
Yeah, you reminded me as you were talking of one
of my spiritual teachers, my monk teacher, who always said
to me, if you want to move three steps forward,
you have to go three steps deep first.

Speaker 1 (12:58):
WHOA.

Speaker 2 (12:59):
And what I've found often in my life is I'm
trying to go four steps forward and i haven't yet
gone four steps deep. And so it's almost like, I mean,
this is probably a terrible analogy, but maybe thinking of
the movie The Substance, I don't know if you watched it,
get terrible, let's rema, no, no, no, let's forget about it.
But it's that idea of like every extra step you

(13:21):
take when you haven't learned, and you haven't experimented, and
you haven't attempted, is taking away from your ability to
move forward. And sometimes I think when we feel stuck,
or when we think things are not moving or they're
not progressing, we may be a signed to say, well,
pause and go deeper for a second, or pause and
go inward for a second. And so to me, hearing

(13:42):
that from you. I find that and I'm I definitely
fail at this all the time. There are so many
times I'm trying to push more forward than I've gone deep.
And so whenever I notice there myself and I notice
that I'm just kind of trying everything and nothing is working,
it's actually just the universe and self saying to me,

(14:03):
go read, go study. And so I've found that I've
had to really carve out time to make time to
do what I love, which is to read and study.
But I've found that I'm someone who doesn't love thirty
minutes a day. I'm not that kind of a reader.
I'm someone who needs to read for three or four hours,
if not more. And so I found that carving out deep,
immersive time is more important to me than this kind

(14:25):
of mechanical thirty forty minutes a day, which is great
for you if that works for you as a habit,
it doesn't for me because I'm a bit of an
extremist and I just need to spend a whole weekend reading, yeah,
as opposed to I don't need to read every day.
So I'll try, and I try once a month on
a weekend to just absorb into a subject that I love,

(14:45):
and I'll take a course, I'll go to a class,
I'll watch a Ted talk online, I'll read as many
books as I can, and I try and immerse myself
that way. What's your learning stuff?

Speaker 1 (14:55):
I'm the same as you. And actually someone who I
really respect and ask for advice for offer and I
asked for feedback on myself. He said to me, Emma,
I think if you did ninety percent of what you
wanted to do at fifty percent of the speed, you
would get so much more like life would be so

(15:16):
much better. And I was like, wow, fifty percent of
the speed and only ninety percent of what I want
to do. And he was like, I think that's the
minimum to be honest, And I was like wow, But
I think, yeah, what you said resonates. I think I
often have to remind myself that it's not about speedily
getting somewhere. It's just not the point. Things are supposed

(15:38):
to happen with a certain timing. And so, yeah, resonates,
And to your point, I cannot just sit for thirty
minutes and look at something I need. I need kind
of like a week on holiday, and then I'll start
to deeply get into something and I need quiet and
I hyper focus and I that's when I you know,

(16:02):
I love it, but I can't. I can't do a
little itty bitty bits.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
Yeah. Nuts, it just doesn't work.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
It doesn't work.

Speaker 2 (16:09):
It doesn't work. For you said that you felt that
you had to learn in public. Yeah, you made mistakes,
like what were mistakes that felt like mistakes then that
made you feel like, oh gosh, I made that mistake
in public. But I was ten years old or whatever
it was, and now you look back and you think, oh,
you know I was able to process it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
I think the big one was feminism and intersectional feminism,
and frankly, it just like wasn't taught, you know, I
had to really seek out. And I'm really grateful actually
that I was in many ways quite lovingly called in
as opposed to I mean, some of it was not.

(16:50):
But I think that was definitely a moment where I
had to say, Okay, I'm talking about something really big
and important and it's actually really important to sit this
in some context, which I have not done. And I
think that was a big moment. I think it was
more there was an omission that there was things that

(17:13):
were missing as opposed to I had said something wrong.
I just needed I just needed to fill in more gaps.
And so that was when I started, or that was
actually in the middle. I had a feminist book club
called the Art Chared Sheelf, and so that was part
of those conversations. But it was a good moment for

(17:34):
me to learn that feeling uncomfortable sometimes is good. I
think we have an alarm system that goes off, which
is I'm uncomfortable. This feels uncomfortable, so something bad must
be happening, and I must leave as soon as possible.
And actually, I think that was when I started to learn, Oh,
actually me being uncomfortable in a space might be a

(17:55):
good sign because it might mean I'm about to learn something.
And I want to attribute this. That was Mara Ala
Rasai who who helped me understand that and was a
very very valuable teaching So now when I'm in a
space and listening to things and I feel uncomfortable, I
don't think it means I need to bolt or something
bad's happening. Yeah, maybe something really good it's about to happen.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
Yeah, yeah. And I feel like that goes back to
what we started with, this idea of attempting means discomfort
means yeah, And I love I love that point you
made that. Actually, whenever we're sharing anything, it's not that
it's not true, it's that it's not complete. Yes, And
mostly when we see people say things or share ideas,

(18:41):
it's very rare to have anyone ever share a complete
idea because that means they would have had to think
about it from every single vantage point, which is not
even humanly possible.

Speaker 1 (18:53):
It's not possible. It's not possible. And I think Adrian
Marie Brown, I don't know if you've ever had she's
she wrote an amazing book which is one of her
more recent ones were just called Loving Corrections, and she
speaks to kind of exactly this, which is, there's kind
of this like aya that we see online when people

(19:17):
don't attribute something perfectly to someone else or they're missing something,
and it's like, isn't the whole point of this that
we're in conversation And if it's the right person, you
can see that a good intention is there, then maybe
we can kind of do it in a way that
doesn't need to be Obviously, there's important time and place

(19:41):
for holding people accountable, but maybe I don't know, attributing
like great, we're all going to help each other, kind
of pad this out, fill this out.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's a hard I think that's the
hard part. It's like, how do you differentiate between holding
someone accountable I'm giving them grace. That's a really interesting
discussion in and of itself, and I don't think I
have the answer or know exactly what it is, but
I feel like that's a thought exercises humans that if
we were to do it would actually I don't know

(20:14):
what's your take.

Speaker 1 (20:16):
Maybe the grace is attributing good intention, and the accountability
is the courage it takes to actually say something to
someone because it's such a scary thing to do and
it often requires a lot of emotional labor. And I
find this a lot as a woman, especially as a

(20:38):
woman who's dating that I will just be like, is
it worth me explaining? Is it worth me explaining this thing?
Should I just not take the time to do this,
because sometimes I will, really I care about doing it
kindly and compassionately, and it's very rare for me to

(20:58):
attribute bad intent to anyone. But you know, sometimes it
does fall on deaf ears and you're like that text
message took me like forty minutes, like to word perfectly
or that voice note or whatever. And you're like, is
this making a difference? Like am I getting through to
any is transformative justice?

Speaker 3 (21:18):
Real?

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Like this is this label worth it? But I think
I don't have a perfect answer.

Speaker 4 (21:25):
I'm not.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
I haven't lived through enough of it to know. I
guess I've just reached a point where it's like I'd
rather I'd rather die trying, I'd rather die having tried.
And maybe some small piece of it, even if it's
not now, even if it's some future point, like something
I've said just like goes oh something, but the back
of my mind here someone says something to me, Then

(21:47):
you know, maybe it's worth it.

Speaker 2 (22:05):
When you think about little Lemma, Yes, what was a
childhood memory that you have, a core memory that you
have that you feel has defined who you are today somewhat.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
I think I won't share the specific memory because it's
so personal. But I think I've always felt other people's
pain very intensely, until maybe recently, I did not know
how to give myself grace and navigate seeing my sensitivity

(22:41):
as a strength and knowing that it's like my gift.
But it also means I have to care for it
in specific ways. When you are given gifts, there's often
kind of have to compensate in some other ways. And

(23:05):
in the same way that my position in life and
fame has given me this extraordinary power, it's also given
me a lot of responsibility. And these things often have
these kind of I don't know when or why it started,
but I think I've always whoever it was that was
suffering in the room, I was always the most aware

(23:26):
of them, and I think that has formed a lot
of why I could act. It was almost like I
was kind of sucking all of this in and then
I needed to let it out somewhere or unleash it somewhere.
And I remember when my parents saw me on stage
for the first time. Afterwards, they were just like, where

(23:49):
did that come from? You don't have any of these experiences.
I recorded a song for my twelfth birthday. My mum
bought me a day in a recording studio, and I
sing Natalie and really torn, like I've had my heartbroken
fifty thousand times, you know, Like I've been married and
divorced and whatever, and I'm twelve. I've never had a
boyfriend and I don't know anything about love.

Speaker 2 (24:11):
Have you ever thought about where it came from? More?

Speaker 1 (24:14):
I would imagine, I can't say for sure, I would
imagine that my family structure has not been a traditional
family structure, and that feeling of knowing that I'm from
a situation where we just don't quite fit the kind

(24:35):
of nuclear family mold. And I think coming back from
France and trying to figure out how to sort of
integrate and being the eldest and having my younger brother
and having my mom and like trying to sort of
be some sort of glue or holding together for everyone's feelings.

(24:57):
I'm pretty sure that's probably where it That's where it started. Yeah.
And then I guess just being aware of other people
who might feel the way I did, which is like
who else in here doesn't feel like they quite fit?

Speaker 2 (25:13):
I've always found that it took me a while to recognize,
but when I did, it was so helpful. That a
lot of what I do today is because I mediated
my parents' marriage growing on. Yeah, and so I developed
all these skills of listening and empathy and grace and
compassion because I was doing it for two people that
I love, Yes, and I see it as a strength,

(25:33):
and yes, it comes with it comes with certain things.
For sure, it comes You're absolutely right. But at the
same time, I've always seen it as a strength. Yes,
And it's something that has served me well in my marriage,
it served me well in my relationships. And at the
same time, it has certain consequences that make you different

(25:53):
or make you process things differently. And so yeah, And
I remember one thing you shared with me that I
was reading it. You said, I used to spend my
weekdays with Mum and my weekends with dad, and you
said it almost felt like you were changing costumes sometimes. Yes,
and they're all like this two lives kind of Yes, Yes,
And I feel that's so relatable. I feel like so

(26:14):
many people can relate to that, whether whether their family
was more traditional or wasn't. I think every child has
had this feeling of not fitting in quite and knowing
which life they're meant to lead, and that feels like
it's kind of played into yours.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yes, for sure. I think it's also why I've had
to really navigate my relationship towards art and acting, because
I'm pretty sure that I was using acting as a
way of escaping how painful my parents, Like, it wasn't
just the divorce, it was just like the continuing situation

(26:51):
of living between two different houses and two different lives
and two different sets of values, and as a child,
like being aware of like, hmm, we don't quite have
the support we need here for this, like this is
not quite We're not quite like and I think it

(27:11):
does it makes you. It made me a slightly serious
child because I was like, had that consciousness, and then
when I would go and spend the weekend with my dad,
it was like a very different set of rules, very
different situation. And so you do you kind of like

(27:34):
and I think everyone can relate to this to an
extent that it's not that you are like wanting to
become different people, but it's there are different expectations of
you in different places that you understand that you need
to fill. And so I think some of that split
then became I was like, Okay, wow, you know my

(27:55):
parents have very different views on different things. And the
hard part of that was that no one gave me
any easy answers. It meant I had to form all
of my own opinions myself because there was no consensus,
and it made me a critical thinker for sure, because
and so that was amazing and also really like, gosh, okay,

(28:17):
I need to decide what I think is important in
life and what my opinions are. No one's handing me this.

Speaker 5 (28:24):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Maybe it also made me aware of not wanting to
be so split as well, and why it's been important
to me to try to remain whole in all the
different circumstances of my life and ask myself questions about
how I can do that best, because I think I
experienced as a child that the split is painful, Like

(28:48):
if you're living a reality one way but presenting something else,
those are the moments when it can you can really
feel torn apart. And I reco recognized that, and I
didn't want that to be my life. I didn't want
pretend to be my real life.

Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, I mean that's so I can so relate to
you personally on the idea of not having a blueprint
and having to create my own. And how often when
you don't have a blueprint, you feel you have two
choices and that's where you feel torn. Whereas when you
look at it as a whole and go, okay, well,
now I get to craft my own narrative from this,

(29:32):
and I may take a few pieces from here and
a few pieces from here, and I'm going to form
my own puzzle. Yeah, but I don't have to choose
a path. It's really beautiful when you do it, but
it's really hard in the beginning because it just feels
like there are two parts. And I wanted to talk
about how much that's impacted you know, your work, and
you said there, you said that one thing you mentioned

(29:52):
that really stood out to me was you felt that
acting was in some way escaping that kind of which
version I have to be. And I think so much
of what we do for work, or so much of
what we pursue as humans, is based on something we're
trying to build, create, maybe escape from, maybe to reveal something,
And I think we haven't often looked at work that way.

(30:15):
Like sometimes we choose a career because we know it
will make our parents happy and so we're living a pattern.
Or sometimes you choose something because it breaks the pattern
that you were growing up in. And it's fascinating to
me to look at that. And for you, you were acting
in school plays since you were a young girl, and
was acting always something you were going to do or
do you feel like it was this cross section of

(30:36):
what was happening in your personal life that actually made
that feel like the direction you would choose.

Speaker 1 (30:42):
I think it's so interesting that you said those words
reveal and escape, that they're kind of the same thing,
because I think that it all started with a poem.
I did a poetry competition when I was nine, called
the Daisy Prat Poetry Competition, and actually naturally quite a
shy person, and so actually for me to stand up

(31:05):
in front of people feels like an out of body experience,
like there's so much adrenaline coursing through my veins that
it does feel like a moment outside of time. And
I remember the exhilaration of living the kind of ups
and downs of this poem. And maybe because there wasn't

(31:32):
space to have conversations or express myself at that time
in the way that I needed to, I did it
through performance. And I also did it as a way
of getting to feel free for a moment of what
I was like the discomfort of that time of not
quite knowing who I was or how to be in

(31:54):
the world. And as I've become more healed and whole
and more comfortable being myself. It's been interesting to ask
myself do you still need acting? Do you still need
to act? Like? Why what are you doing that for?

(32:15):
And like the kind of it used to feel like,
almost like a compulsion that I needed to do it.
And what's really interesting now is I don't feel quite
that kind of urgency of needing to do it. And
I wonder if it's because actually I have spaces where
I can now take some of those feelings and talk

(32:37):
about some of the things I don't think I had
space to voice get out doing it on camera in
one of thousands of people.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Which is which is scary in its own way. Right,
It's easy to to think, oh, that makes sense, but
then it's like, well no, it's it's really challenging to
do that second part, even if it makes sense rationally.
And was that what in twenty nineteen when you kind
of pulled away, was your reason I want to heal

(33:07):
and work on myself or was it actually I don't
feel a compulsion anymore, Like was that the inflection point
of doing some self work or was that the inflection
point of I need to pause?

Speaker 1 (33:19):
I realized I was drawing on painful stuff in my
life that I was actually healing, and I didn't want
to keep revisiting in order to do some of the
more intense, scarier, sadder things that I had to do.
I realized I remember by Bath's deathbed, by her graveside

(33:43):
when we shot those films, like normally, there are like
these painful memories that I would use for those moments,
and I realized I was like, I don't know if
this is super great for me actually to keep revisiting
these or if I want to use these as my tools.
And I don't think that means I'll never come back
to acting. I think it just meant I was like, hmm,

(34:05):
I wonder if there's a different way to do this.
I think the second thing was to be really honest.
I was coming to those sets with an expectation that
I think I had developed on Harry Potter, which was
that we were the people I worked with were going
to be my family, and that we were going to

(34:26):
be lifelong friends. I came to work looking for friendship,
and that was a very painful experience for me outside
of Harry Potter and in Hollywood, like bone breakingly painful,
because most people don't come to those environments looking for friendships.

(34:47):
They're looking for this is my chance, this is my role,
this is what I went out of it. I'm focused,
this is my job, this is my career, like let go.
And I was not of that mindset, and so I
found I found the rejection really painful, the friendship rejection.

Speaker 2 (35:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Yeah, of like I really I was, like, I think
it's so unusual to make a set of films for
twelve years and we were a community, like we really were.
And so I took that as an expectation into my
into my other workplaces, and I just got my I
just got my ass kicked. I really did.

Speaker 2 (35:33):
Was it competition? Was it envy? Was it just hierarchy?
Was it?

Speaker 1 (35:36):
I think it was a combination. I was a Molotov
cocktail of all of the above. As we mentioned earlier.
I'm just not thick skinned, and maybe I just wasn't
built for those kinds of highly competitive environments. It Yeah,
it broke me.

Speaker 6 (35:54):
Yeah, but in a way I'm proud that it did,
because I guess that means I have something left to break.

Speaker 3 (36:05):
I have a heart left to break. So it was
a hard learning, but I think there's something that.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
I'm proud of in a way that there were certain
things I couldn't withstand. I'd much rather keep my humanity
I'm managining.

Speaker 5 (36:37):
Like inside that's really yeah, no, but I really appreciate
you saying that, and I mean, it's so powerful to
hear how you've processed it, like just what you added there,
because when I saw your voice change and just when
you expressing it and it and it hit me as
you said it and I felt it, and then the

(37:00):
way you reflected on it kind of helped that feeling
rise really beautifully because what you said is so true
that if you were broken by a frequency of envy
and competition and whatever else it was, that's only proof
that you were vibrating in a way that didn't want

(37:22):
to be pulled down into that.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
And it's so interesting, though, how when we break to
those sorts of emotions and ideas, we feel we're the
weak one, Yeah, when it's completely the opposite.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
That was the most painful thing was I thought I
beat myself up for years afterwards, really thinking like punishing myself,
saying you couldn't hack it, you weren't strong enough, And yeah,
what bliss and what peace? I think to understand that

(37:59):
two have out on top would have been a greater
failure I think in terms of who I actually care
about being.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Yeah, it's almost like if you abandoned yourself in that
moment in order to align with that new way of thinking, yeah,
you'd probably beat yourself up more long term and have
a much more of time.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yes, I think. So, I don't know. I've just got
to this place where it's just if it costs me
any part of my piece, it's just too expensive. And
of course, like there's opportunities that I think, wow, like
that would be amazing, and I care deeply about my work.

(38:51):
But I think it's just I think I just used
to completely sacrifice myself for whatever the thing was I
was trying to achieve. And that could be a grade,
it could be a movie, it could be promoting. I
just was obsessed with excellence and doing everything, giving my
all to everything and doing it to the best of

(39:12):
my ability. And unless you have the right people around
you that can hold that kind of level of commitment,
you're going to get smashed up. You're just going to
get crushed. And so I think now it's just a
case of me being like, Okay, I know that for
me to do anything, I have to have people in

(39:32):
the room that care about me more than whatever the
product is or whatever the final product is. And if
that isn't the case, I cannot be there because I'm
just someone who like gives it all is how I'm built.
And I think understanding that makeup of myself and not

(39:53):
punishing myself for that, but just knowing it needs certain
kinds of conditions is how I've come to hopefully not
keep doing it forever and probably every day, but accepting myself.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
Yeah, it seems like I've spoken to so many and
we were talking about this last week when we were
speaking on the phone, that I've worked with so many
young people musicians who've all been told like, all right,
if you don't do this over the next twelve months,
you're not gonna make it, yeah, or like if you
don't do this right now, if you don't say yes
to this song or this movie, it's like you might

(40:30):
as well wave it goodbye. You're never going to get
the Oscar or the whatever it may be, or the
Grammy or whatever it is. And I can't imagine being
a young person like I'm thirty seven now and it's
you process ideas like that differently. Yeah, but if you're
in your teens or even twenties, there's and maybe even thirties,

(40:51):
but you process those statements with so much gravitas, especially
when it's someone of influence and power saying it to you.
And yeah, like being surrounded by people who really believe
in you and your longevity and your art versus. But
that's hard to find.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
It is, it's hard to find. And you know, I
had a wonderful team, like I really did. I think
it's just like understanding that no one at the end
of the day is going to be in the room,
like when you're had me doing the thing. You have
to carry that moment and you have to carry that pressure. Also,

(41:29):
making films that hours on them are so demanding that
to have your own life alongside that, to have that
balance is almost impossible. It's so all or nothing, it's
so all encompassing, especially if you're in a lead role.
You kind of go through these you know, working six

(41:52):
days a week, fourteen to sixteen hour days, and then
you're just kind of dropped off at the end of it,
and maybe you'll have a two or three month gap
and then there's just kind of like nothing, and so
you're like riding this like incredible peak of like adrenaline
and cortisol and then you just get like dropped off
the edge and they're like, Okay, wait, now I have
to be a functioning human again, and I have to

(42:12):
like figure out how to be a person in the
real world. And I think some of those extremes then
force an actor to either decide, well, I'm going to
back to back it, so I'm going to basically go
from one movie to the next and that's going to
be my full life. Or you have to navigate these

(42:34):
huge impacts on your nervous system that you need a
system and a support system to help you navigate. And
I think it's why addiction and mental illness in my profession,
and then a lot of high stress, high profile professions
is so commonplace because you're trying to balance out these

(42:58):
enormous chemical ups and downs.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
Yeah, talk to people about why, because I think from
the outside, when someone sees a red carpet, yeah, or
when someone sees an event, it looks really glamorous. Like
until I ever attended anything, and you know, I always
looked at it's like, oh my gosh, it's so glamorous
and everyone's there and everyone must be friends and everyone
must know each other because they all, you know. But

(43:24):
but then you're not saying that, and neither is And
any time I've ever been on a red carpet, everyone's
anxious and everyone's nervous, and that's the real experience. And
people are almost waiting to leave. Yes, and some people
do the red carpet and leave immediately, But but what's
going on there? Like walk us through? Like I mean,
for people who may not.

Speaker 1 (43:41):
I think the first step is to just understand even
though you're wearing an incredibly glamorous dress and you're there
to do something exciting. I don't think there's anything that
can make it not weird that people are screaming at
the top of their lungs. Like it just everything in
your body says something's wrong. Like people are screaming, something's wrong.

(44:06):
But then you have to try to pretend as though
this is all normal and you're unfazed. So you have
like two things going on. One you're like navigating this
like sensory overload. That's like telling you, oh my god,
something is really wrong where you are you Yeah, so
you're trying to navigate. Okay, something feels wrong, but I

(44:30):
need to also simultaneously make it seem as though I
am the most graceful and the most calm I've ever
been in my whole life. And I need to like
pose for this person. And there's fifty different cameras and
I need to make sure that I look perfectly into
each and every one. And I probably will have had
four different notes from the stylist about how I'm supposed

(44:50):
to stand and what I need to do for the dress,
and then I've got like twenty five different talking points
from the movie of like what I need to get
across and also avoid saying or talking about, and so
like you need to be thinking about that, and the
juggles crazy, and then I think everyone is in this

(45:10):
like kind of jumped up state, and so like trying
to have a normal conversation with anyone is basically impossible
because you feel like an insane person. And so these
are not environments in which you like have a nice
chat with someone. Really. I mean maybe if you're really
lucky you've worked with someone for a long time and

(45:31):
you've established and trust. But I think that was the
other thing that was like really difficult about movies and
what like I kind of laugh at well, not in
a mean way, but like, you know, you always get
asked when you're like promoting these big films like so
do you guys hang out on set? And like do
you guys hang out? And like are you all friends?
And everyone's sort of like nods enthusiastically, But the truth is,

(45:52):
no one has seen each other outside of work, like
very very very rarely, mostly because the schedule is insane.
Everyone's so tired that when you get any time off,
you're going straight back to your hotel room to try
to like claw in any piece of rest that you
possibly can, and like, I don't know, like it, friendships

(46:12):
require time and trust and presence and those things like
very rarely come about. They can, and they like do occasionally,
but it's more of a more of a you know,
solar eclipse than an everyday situation. So yeah, but you
have to pretend. I think that's the part that starts

(46:33):
to feel icky after a while, is that you have
to pretend that you're all best friends and what's so sad.
And I know this isn't just the case for me,
but like I think people wish they were I think
we wish we did have those real connections and we
did have that real support. And so having to pretend
that something exists that you actually really want but don't

(46:54):
have is like it's like that pretty grainy in the wound,
you know. It's like it's pretty like tough pill to swallow,
to have to act out something that you wish were
real but isn't real. Yeah, And I think that's the
part that starts to kind of yeah, I can speak
for myself, but those are definitely the moments for have
been like this feels dark, like anyone else like this

(47:19):
feels dark.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
Yeah, And there's such a real reminder that it's still work.
And it's almost like asking anyone who works at any
company and saying, hey, do you hang out with your
team after work every night? And the answer is probably no. Yeah,
everyone's go home to their family and maybe you've got
a couple of course, you've got a couple of friends
at work. And it's wonderful if you have a friend
at work that you work out with or see after hours,

(47:43):
but you're not hanging out as the whole crew. It's
it's very unlikely, and it is that reality check of no,
but this is also just work. Yeah, and their character
stories are not their personal stories, and it doesn't And
that's why I wanted to go back. You mentioned their
you talked about how Harry Potter had a family feel,
and I wanted to ask you how did that come

(48:05):
about in the first what was where did the auditions
come from? Like, how did that become a part of
your life?

Speaker 1 (48:11):
Yes, so I did not go to a performing arts school.
I'd never done anything. I never acted professionally, but they came.
They did like a basically country wide search to find Harry,
Harmione and Ron and so they asked my school if
they wanted to smit any students who loved drama who

(48:34):
wanted to audition, and so I was one of I
think about twelve students that was asked if I wanted
to audition. I don't know, it was weird. I had
this weird, weighted, fated sense of destiny pretty much from
the moment that they said they mentioned the audition. I

(48:56):
remember I brought I think maybe like seven different beanie
babies with me along and like all these different like
lucky talismans, and I loved the world and the book
so much. My dad had been reading them to me
before bed when I would spend the weekends with him,
and on long car journeys, we'd often drive back and
forwards to France, and that's how the time would be passed.

(49:20):
And so I was just like, loved the world, loved Hermione.
And for me, it wasn't so much about acting so
much as it was that, like I just the books
meant so much to me personally.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
Did you feel like it was destiny for you or
did it feel like did you always feel like it
was going to be this? I always think obviously the
books were already I.

Speaker 1 (49:46):
Always felt like Hermione was.

Speaker 2 (49:51):
I knew.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
I was never auditioning for anything else, like I knew
it was her. I don't know. I don't know how
to explain it. Something felt right about it. And yeah,
my poor parents, because if I hadn't have got it,
I think they knew her crusher. I ended up doing
nine auditions over a period of over a year and

(50:11):
a half, which for a nine year old is a
massive commitment. But I was. I loved her. I loved it.
I really did.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
What do you wish now that you would have known
before you became HERMIONI.

Speaker 1 (50:30):
I did a pretty good job. And I'm actually I
give my mother specifically credit for this. She was like
a warrior for my normalcy and for me having an
ordinary life and going to school, and no one wanted that.

(50:52):
I mean, it would have been considerably easier if I
had not continued going to school. But she, Wow, like
I will forever be in her debt. She somehow knew
that me feeling part of the ordinary world and feeling

(51:12):
I had a place in it and that I belonged
outside of those films was going to be crucial.

Speaker 2 (51:18):
Wow, that's really incredible.

Speaker 1 (51:21):
It was because she basically didn't have anyone on her team.
She was kind of on her own on that one,
and she fought tooth and nail. She was like on
the phone for hours saying she has to sit her exams,
she has to go back, like she needs to be here,
she she needs to have some parts of a normal
childhood and yeah, forever in her dad.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
That's so special to have had that and have those Yeah,
to have a parent who yeah, you can't see anything
for yourself, You're yeah, No.

Speaker 1 (51:55):
And to be honest, I didn't really I didn't really
get it if I'm gonna be I was like, Okay,
I guess it's important, Like you know, I didn't really
get it, so I think, yeah, she was amazing.

Speaker 2 (52:25):
When did Emma you? Emma Watson and Hermione and the
characters that then followed start to get blurred and intertwined
because that expectation that comes with I remember this and
I share it because to give it to context to people.
I was walking down the road with one of my

(52:47):
friends who's an actor who gets recognized a hundred times
for every one time I get recommend just and so
for walking down like this person willet stopped a hundred
times for pictures and then I'll get stopped once. And
it was really beautiful because we'd spent a day together
and that person had been stopped a hundred times, and
then they've been stopped a couple of times. And then

(53:07):
they said something to me. They said, Jay, you're really lucky,
And I said, what do you mean? And and I
thought they were going to say because I'm anomus to
some degree, but they didn't. He said to me, he goes, Jay,
You're really lucky, because he goes when people stop me,
they stop me for who I play to be and
when they stop you, they stop you for who you are.

(53:28):
And it was really encouraging words from some of that
respect a lot, and I was like, wow, like I
never thought about it like that. I just I just
it hadn't hit me how different it was. And because
I think you just see fame or success or whatever,
it is this one big bubble of stuff, especially when
you're not that close to it, you don't know too
much about it. And it was that conversation that made

(53:50):
me even be even more personal with everyone that I
ever spoke to, because they'd always have a personal story
or And that's not to say that isn't true for
music and for acting. Of course there is. I don't
want to take away from no, no, And I'm not
saying that as an egotistical statement. I'm saying it as like,
how hard it is for an individual to go through that, Yes,

(54:12):
and to be disassociated from themselves. Yes, because that role
could be a part of you, It could be an
expression of you, It was a part of your life
at a certain period of time, But of course it
isn't you. Yes, But does that make any sense?

Speaker 1 (54:27):
I remember when I gave my un speech about heaps
and about feminism and women's rights, and people started stopping
me because of things that I had come from me
and that I had said. It felt like a very
significant transition for me because for the first time I

(54:49):
felt like I could look someone in the eye and
receive and accept something that they were saying, because I
felt like it actually had something to do with me,
and I wasn't just kind of a like a cuss
c stodian of something sacred, which I did take very
seriously and I still do. But it had been a
direct transmission from me. And I think that's why writing

(55:09):
has become so important to me, is because it's a
way that I can say things directly and that feels
really meaningful.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
Yeah, I love the word you just use there of
the difference between being a custodian and you know, direct
transmission you said, And that's such an interesting way to
think about it. And I think each and every one
of us don't want to be known as a lawyer
or an accountant or a doctor or a like that. Yes,
that's a part of us, and it's a role we

(55:38):
play in society, and it of course brings significance and
value and worth and all of these wonderful things, but
I think everyone wants to be something beyond that, and
no one wants to be that in their home, and
no one wants to be that with their friends, and
no one no one wants and me included, by the way,
It's like I try, and me and my one of
my friends is a well known stand up comic. We

(56:00):
always joke about how he hates to be asked to
tell jokes on command. And I try with my friends
to not say smart, to say thoughtful, revolatory things. Because
of my friends, I just want to be Like I
don't want to have to coach someone's marriage or solve
their thing. I don't want to do that, Like I

(56:20):
just want to be and and so even for someone
who loves who is doing direct transmission a lot more
of the time, even then there's a feeling of, well,
I don't want to say anything profound in this conversation.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
She put this down.

Speaker 2 (56:32):
I need to put the one down right.

Speaker 1 (56:34):
Yeah, yeah, I think a big piece of me like
understanding again, like why I needed to take him in
It is that like even being the person who was
promoting the work became a kind of role like Emma
Watson became this like avatar, this this person that I identified with,

(56:56):
but also kind of didn't. She'd become reproduce so many
times over and kind of had become so loaded by
all of this different stuff that she almost felt too
heavy to carry. Like I kind of was like, I
don't even know if I can, if I can be
that bitch anymore. Like I like, you know, I went

(57:18):
on a date like two years ago, and like it
was the best confession ever. But I was like messaging
this person they were like Emma, and he was like,
can I just say something like Emma, Watson makes me anxious?
And I was like, Watson makes me anxious too, on
the same page, like I get it, Like I can't
even be her. I don't know how to be her

(57:40):
live up to what I look like on the cover
of a magazine. I don't look like that. I can't.
I don't know. I don't even know how to touch
what that person's become. It's kind of a funny realization
at some point where it's like I need to step
off this thing because I just once you've I don't know.

(58:01):
There's such a glamorization that comes hand in hand with
being a public famous person, especially if you're a woman,
Like I feel so envious of my male co stars
who can just put on a T shirt and show
up without like this ps like whole rigmarole of kind
of becoming acceptable enough to be on camera and ah,

(58:26):
like kudos to Pamela Anderson recently and just like doing
the thing, because it's like the amount of courage it
will have taken to do that, Like I cannot even
begin to express to you, it's wild. The expectations are insane,
it's impossible.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
So on vacation, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Just the beauty expectations are so difficult to reach and
the bar gets raised all the time, so it's like
you're on this constantly, Like I don't know, it's like
some sort of like Survivors Island Games Show beauty nightmare
where you know, I don't know, it's it's it's nuts.

(59:14):
So I yeah, I think part of also not feeling
like and Watson is just like the whole like glam
squad culture of it all is it's sentense.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
Yeah, it's so fascinating because there's almost like this this
learning of becoming you know, becoming Emma Watson, becoming you know,
being all the roles you play, and then it almost
feels like what you're saying is there was a moment
you wanted to step off and unlearn what that meant total.
But that seems really hard, Yes, because yes, learning it

(59:52):
was hard enough, and then to unlearn it when it's
linked to your work, your finances, your work, your friendship,
community connection, all of the where you live, how do
you even begin to unlearn? Being Emma Watson, it's noted ball.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
You have to sort of unravel very carefully.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
And carefully, that's it.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
Yeah, yeah, I think it's.

Speaker 2 (01:00:15):
Not like a wrecking ball, like you're not just I.

Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
Mean, some things had to be done like the wrecking ball, honestly,
and then some parts of it were like a much slower,
more gentle teasing out. But I mean, I don't know
if you find this, but I imagine that a lot of
your friendships are made through the podcast and made through
your work, and there's kind of this like non separation

(01:00:41):
between your home and your family and your relationship and
the podcast. But tied into that, there's also like the
very real some people will be wanting you to reference
their new book or like promote something for them or whatever,
and like navigating that so many of these threads are entwined.
Does it ever start to feel like, wow, this is

(01:01:02):
a lot people ask me all the time. Do you
ever wonder why people want to hang out with you
or be your friend or whatever? And does that ever
get complicated for you?

Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
I think because my direct transmission is so clear that
if anyone in the industry wants to connect, yeah, there's
usually quite a distinct journey that they're on that mine
can support or help with as a friend or in
a more formal capacity, and that I deeply enjoy and

(01:01:38):
I'm grateful for because people are not inviting me out
to crazy parties, and I'm happy they're not. They're not. Yeah,
they don't think I'm just a clipping the other day
of Austin Butler saying he's he does He's never been
invited to a bachelor party. I can't believe it, but

(01:01:59):
that that kind of feel like, I don't get invited
to crazy parties, and I'm grateful for that. I don't know,
it's not really a part of my life unless it's
a spiritual party and then I'm all game. But there
isn't that, And so sometimes I think it's a good
my direct transmission is a good protective mechanism because I
don't really get asked to come to things. But then
at the same time, it takes me to get to

(01:02:20):
know someone deeply. Like I just traveled with a friend
to Greece and we played and I don't think they
were anticipating this, but we played three nights of poker
from midnight to seven am and it was amazing and
I loved it and I had the best time. And
I don't think they expected me to do that. They
expect me to get to bed early. But I was
on vacation and I was like, I'm a game, yeah exactly,
and I'm one. So I was like, you know, I'll

(01:02:41):
take it. And I'm very competitive in that way, and
I enjoy it. And so I think what it is
for me is I think there's a big thing for
me has been from I grew up as part of
a big community in London, yeah, and the big spiritual
community that I became a part of when I was young.
And I think that what I've found is it's very

(01:03:04):
difficult to discern for people externally and even for people
in that community as to how close they were to
me right, And so there are some people that assume
that because we sat in a class together and there
were two hundred people in the class, but now that
their opinion on me or that their relationship with me
is close, when in actuality, I've never had a one
to one conversation with that person, and so now their

(01:03:26):
opinion matters to the outside world, it matters to the media,
it matters to whatever. But I actually don't know that
person and they don't really know me. It's just so
that we went to the same congregation in that same year,
which has lots thousands of people in it, and so
I struggle with that. And then I also struggle with
people coming up to me and saying, oh, Jay, I've

(01:03:46):
known you for twenty years and you know, like from
back in the day of the Temple. But I'm like,
we didn't, like, we didn't ever have a conversation. And
I still have all my best friends from that community
that are still my closest friends. Yeah, and they also
feel the same way because they see it. And so
I think I find that very difficult. True is hard
to navigate because it's not that I don't have positive

(01:04:08):
feelings towards people or the community or anything I do.
But I struggle with people feeling they know me when
they never did, right, but they've almost created a story
within their mind that they really knew me well. And
because it was a big community. This isn't a group
of school friends or something which I'm still really close with.
It's more of this expanded community which you were just

(01:04:30):
visible in, right, not even audible or if that makes
any sense, No.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
That makes perfect sense. I think, Yeah, being part of
a larger community would be true here to navigate with. Yeah,
with the kind of I guess like being a famous
person in essences, like lots of people can project lots
of things onto you, and like if they had some
level of contact with you, it makes those kinds of
protections a lot easier. And then you're like, oh, wow,

(01:04:57):
we're in a completely different like your experience that this
is so different from mine.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Yeah, yeah, and yeah, and I mean yours is like
a million xter and you know, I can't imagine. I
can't I can't imagine. I can't imagine how a hard
dating is, Like you talked about in some of the
reflections that you see, like this idea is just like
dating is hard as a twenty or old thirty year
old woman anyway. Yeah, and then to add your life

(01:05:24):
to it. Yeah, talk to me. You've referenced it a
couple of times in conversations you've had, Like, what does
it feel like when you're having a normal conversation and
someone goes, wait a minute, you're yeah, Hermione Granger, Emma Watson,
you know, a list goes on.

Speaker 1 (01:05:37):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it does. It does feel like
my avatar enters the room unexpectedly all of a sudden,
and then I'm like navigating a completely different conversation if
someone hasn't figured out that it's me yet, and that
can feel really dehumanizing and sometimes quite kind of of

(01:06:01):
seeing someone's like behavior like completely switch and turn and
change can be kind of a jarring experience. I think
what's nice is at the very least like dating for
everyone is is basically a complete disaster and free for all,
So like, I feel like I'm in good company in

(01:06:22):
that sense. But I think it's funny. Occasionally people will
apologize to me for the fact they've not seen my films,
and I will be like, please don't apologize. That is
bliss to me. Like music, to my ears that like,
you're not going to constantly be navigating and me also
navigating with you. This projection of me or this Emma

(01:06:45):
Watson avatar person will not be this ghost in the room.
So that's happened a few times where people have been like,
I'm really sorry, please apologize, I'm so ry, I'm so
incredibly relieved, and then the box later on, Yeah, I
hope not. I mean, I guess, like I want people

(01:07:06):
to appreciate my work, but I think knowing you don't
have to navigate that extra like degree of weirdness is
helpful relief.

Speaker 2 (01:07:17):
How do you help people get to know the real
you at this stage in your life?

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
You know, I wrote this play that I actually sent
to you to read, but I actually read parts of
it to people because I find that trying to explain
sometimes how weird it is to be me, like I
almost need aids, like it's not it's so difficult to

(01:07:43):
convey like how weird it is and how surreal sometimes
that I sometimes be like, can I just, like weed
do this thing I wrote because I think it's going
to shortcut you somewhere. And so that's actually been incredibly
helpful and I'm I'm so glad I went and did
this this Creative Writing masters and have spent more time

(01:08:03):
writing about my experiences because sometimes I can't even articulate
it to myself, Like how how are you supposed to
explain to me? Does someone else you can't really even
understand for yourself. So I think writing creative writing making
art has been the best therapy I've ever done, because

(01:08:24):
it's helped me get clarity and also just being able
to laugh at myself and laugh at the situation. I
think one on one therapy can be amazing, but like
there is a kind of intensity and a seriousness to
that that maybe when you're writing something down. And when
I wrote the Player, I wrote it for my friends
and family, and I was able to kind of be

(01:08:46):
more my bring more of myself to the picture in
a way, which is someone who's like this is just nuts,
Like I just can't, Like I can't sometimes I just
genuinely cannot believe that my life is my life, and
I make the place I can put that.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
Yeah, I loved so just for everyone who's you know,
hearing about the referencing of this play, Emma wrote a
play which helped her closest friends and family understand her
experience of life. Basically, Yeah, right, is that a bad description?

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
No, no, it's not a bad description. But like, specifically,
I wrote the play about me transitioning from basically being
a full time actress an activist to try to move
home and like be a normal student and attend a
normal university as a super famous person. And I basically

(01:09:44):
kept a journal of what those experiences were like and
chronicled them for my friends and family for about a
year and then performed it as a one woman show
at the end of the first year and handed that
in as my first year piece of work. And yeah,
yeah it got a distinction. It actually did not that

(01:10:07):
that was the point, but it kind of wasn't the point.
But I think the coolest thing was was, like I
read it from my roommate, for example, he's believing me
for seven years, and he was like, we alway stop
sorselves as well. He's like, is this actually how you feel?
Like do you actually feel this? And I was like, yeah,
I wouldn't have written it if I didn't, And he
was like, I had no idea that this was how

(01:10:28):
you felt, And this is someone I live with and
so for me, who I perceived myself to be this
like massive open book, and actually I realized I was like, Wow,
I think I'm doing a good job of bringing the
people that I love along with me on what this
feels like. And actually I'm not saying nearly enough or

(01:10:49):
explaining it in a way where it makes sense. And
so even my parents were just like, I couldn't believe it. Really, yeah, I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:10:57):
Sure they were brought to tears by parts of it.
I was so moved by it, and I really hope
you do one day make it a production in some capacity,
because it was so moving and so powerful, and honestly,
it was what every public figure has ever tried to
explain to me about their experience, yet put so succinctly,

(01:11:21):
powerfully and meaningfully that anyone could relate to it. And
I think anyone, meaning anyone who's ever felt misunderstood, loved
for what they have and not who they are, seen
for parts of themselves and not all of themselves. And
I really believe it would be such a service to
everyone to share it one day, in however way you

(01:11:42):
decide to, because honestly, I was gripped, I was completely
captivated I couldn't put it down. I feel like I'm
going to read it again and again and again. It's
not something that I think you read once. Not only
are you a brilliant writer, but it is so true
and honest and for everyone who's listening and watching. I
think the from it for me is that your therapy

(01:12:04):
could turn into something creative. That when you shared that
with me when we were speaking on the phone, I
was so in awe of that. That therapy in one
to one setting or in whatever way of healing you
believe in, if it turns into something you have to
put together to communicate to others, that's the revelation. Like

(01:12:25):
the revelation is in that process, not in the listening, telling, share, speaking.
That's great and that's a part of it, but if
you can go one step ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:12:35):
Truly, I feel this urgency and like desperation to communicate
this specific piece, which is like make art about your experiences,
like the neurosis of being a writer or anyone making anything.
It's like I don't have anything valuable to say. It's
all been said before. This is so self indulgent, This
is so narcissistic. Who even wants to hear this, this

(01:12:59):
is bad. I thought all of those thoughts, probably most
days as I wrote this. But trust me, like whatever
you think people know about you, or they know about
your life or how you feel about it, they don't.
And they need you to write poems, write songs, make pictures,

(01:13:20):
write plays. And you don't need to be someone with
the title of an artist to be able to do that.
You really don't. And in fact, I have to write
on my mirror. I haven't written on my door I
am an artist because I don't think anyone feels like
they deserve that title. I've been making films and writing

(01:13:41):
and making arts since I was nine years old, and
I don't feel like I deserve that title, and I
have to work at it all the time to feel
like I have anything that's worthwhile saying. I really understand
the struggle. I really really do. But there is something
about doing it and like having a physical thing, because
I think so many of these thoughts and feelings live

(01:14:02):
in our heads and it's not a great place for
them to live. They need to come out somewhere, and
once you can put them somewhere, then you're free being
understood or feeling like you're understood. By the people around
you has got to be the best feeling in the world.

(01:14:22):
And I think it's what we're looking for when we
do so many things, but often that's not the way
to find it. And I just, god, yeah, if I
honestly I want to go to every person in the
street and be like, you need to write a one
person show about your life and then perform it for
your friends and family, or like you need to like,

(01:14:43):
you know, paint the thing, write the song, like, just
do it, because it's kind of one of the best
most meaningful things I've done. Yeah, trying to make sense
of sense of it all.

Speaker 2 (01:14:55):
Yeah, And I love that you did it for your family.
Like that's the part that proves to me when you
say the message you of make your art and you
know you don't need to be a full time actor
or a director or movie filmmaker. It's like you actually
lived that part. And that's what I love about it
the most, is that you didn't make it for a
stage or a movie or a documentary or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
And honestly, first I wrote it for myself. I didn't
think I honestly, I didn't think I had the guts
to read this aloud. To anyone. I thought it was
just for me and maybe like two other people and
performing it for my I didn't even invite my family
until like two days before, because I just didn't think
I had the courage make art for people you love,
like make beautiful things for people that you love, just

(01:15:37):
for people that you love. Like That's one I guess,
like I had the extraordinary experience of making things for
like the world basically from such a young age, and
I never made anything that I didn't feel like needed
to be shared publicly. And I remember when I made
Little Women. I mean, that's such an amazing thing about
Louise Maelcot is that really she wrote these stories for

(01:15:59):
her sisters. So many people's journeys and paths start because, yeah,
out of love, they wrote them for just one person.
There was a certain point I remember in my life
where I was like, right, I'm done with university now,
and now I'm going to just like focus full What
I should be doing is just focusing full time on
being an actress and you know, doing all of that.
And I had completely missed actually that emma, the academic emma,

(01:16:23):
the student emma, the person that needs to needs to
constantly be learning things facilitated my ability to be a
famous person and in Hollywood, and that without her I
actually couldn't do it. I needed, I need to have both,
and that when one gets stripped away. And like, even

(01:16:43):
as I and explore this in the player as well,
it's like, even as I have returned to some form
of normalcy, ordinary life, whatever that looks like to me now,
like I also can't kill her off completely, you know,
my public person, there's parts of me that like still
does need those outlets and to do those things too,
And I'm figuring out what those are. But I think

(01:17:05):
that's what's so complicated about being humans, is it's yes
and not either or it's we need we need to
be all of ourselves so that we can do the
extraordinary things that we what we want to do. Maybe
it's about not leaving parts of ourselves behind, like kind
of finding a way to keep threading the tapestry all

(01:17:27):
of it.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
Yeah, I think that's I mean, you've you've said it
so well, and I really feel that that's what it's
been for me. It's I feel like it's humans were
very good at being like, Okay, this chapter of my
life is over. Yeah, and we do it because labeling helps.
But it's like you went from being a toddler, yes,
or an infant, and then you became you know, a teen,
and then a young adult and then an adult and
then so we have all these labels yeah, and it

(01:17:50):
almost feels like we live our life that way. It's like, Okay,
I was a student at university. If I went to university,
and now I have a job and I'm an employee
or an art whatever it is, and labels are useful,
so I'm not going to say they aren't. But what
ends up happening is you start labeling phases of your
life yes, which means now there isn't a yes, and
it's an either raw. So it's like I was an actress,

(01:18:12):
now I'm going to be an academic and it's like, well, no,
I'm an academic and an actress and whatever else you know,
And I think that's what it's been for me. It's
like I know that the people that know me best
will say, Jay, I love you because we can talk
about spirituality. We can talk about business, and we can
talk about communication, media art, and I love you because

(01:18:34):
we can do all those three things in one day
and I'm like, yes, I feel so seen. Yeah, if
someone only said one of those things, I'd feel so limited.
And what I've realized is I'm now at a place
where I've given myself permission to be all of myself,
even if others don't give me permission to be all
of those things. Yes, because yeah, And.

Speaker 1 (01:18:54):
How amazing to get to that point where I realized
for a long time I was pushing for I need
everyone to understand me, and I need them to understand
these decisions, and I need them to understand that I'm
all of these things. And I'm like, but do you really, Emma,
do you actually really need them to get it? Always
enough that you get it, you see it and understand it,
and you're making it possible and giving yourself permission to

(01:19:16):
do that. And I think once I kind of let
go of like, okay, it matters way more that I
accept myself than that I spend so much energy and
time trying to force other people to see these things
about me. And then paradoxically, of course, once you let go,
people start getting it, which is which is funny.

Speaker 2 (01:19:40):
Emma, how do you how do you see love today? God?

Speaker 1 (01:19:43):
What a great question, Oh, I see love today. Oh okay,
I think I have an answer with this. How exciting
I was right there for and I was like, I
do am I that deep? Yeah? Okay, So I think that, oh,

(01:20:06):
we don't talk about love nearly enough, or I think
we need to talk about it so much more, because
I had such a not a misunderstanding, but I think
I had a very limited understanding of it for a
long time, which was that we see in Disney movies
and in Hollywood movies, this idea that like falling in love,

(01:20:26):
once it sort of happened to you, it's like irreversible,
you know, like step into this pottle that you can't
get out of anymore because you've fallen in love. And actually,
I think falling in love might be quite easy to
do in some ways. That's sort of the easy bit.
The hard part is finding someone who actually wants to
be in a dance with you and be in some

(01:20:49):
form of partnership with you, and things like can you argue? Well,
can you be? Is the conflict that you have generative?
And can you make someone else feel safe? Like? And
when I say safe, I don't mean like as of
physical danger, I mean like, can you either respond to

(01:21:09):
a text message quickly enough that doesn't send the other
person into like a complete free fall and or not
pelt them with so many that they feel completely overwhelmed
and flooded. And like that kind of like compatibility and
that kind of willingness to be in this like is
this okay for you? Does this feel good to you?

(01:21:30):
This is how it feels for me? And like there's
like that constant back and forth and that constant check
in is like a game of chicken in a way
of like can you find someone who's willing to be
as vulnerable? Is it necessarily requires, I think, to like
figure out those micro adjustments until you're sort of in

(01:21:51):
some kind of dance with someone else. And that is
a very different understanding that I have come to of
what love is than I have. I mean, like loving
someone is so much more complex than the projections that
we put on someone or even like just lusting or
having some small feeling for someone else. But I just

(01:22:14):
think that we have such a black and white idea
about what love is supposed to be. And I wish
I'd understood more before I went into battle. I do,
I really really do? What do you think love is?

Speaker 2 (01:22:48):
Jane, Oh wow, Oh my gosh, you're fliving this back.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
That's a conversation. Does any of what I've said resonate?

Speaker 2 (01:22:57):
It does?

Speaker 1 (01:22:57):
It does resonates on the right track, Jake, I need
you to tell me.

Speaker 2 (01:23:02):
I think it resonates a lot. I grew up in
a I grew up with a very film naive Disney
version of what love was.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:23:10):
I love that version of love, yeh. I love the
idea that love was this really romantic, really sweet, writing
letters every day you kind of love like that. That's
the love I dreamed of, and love I thought of
as a kid at least. Yeah, And then you know,
I think, I realize that you do all of that

(01:23:31):
with the first person you're with in your teens, and
you kind of think it's the real thing. But then
they're in a mood every night for no reason, and
you're just people pleasing and trying to figure out what's
going on, and you think it's all about making that
person happy, and so you mold and you bend, and you,
you know, sabotage parts of yourself. And I realized very
quickly that that wasn't love. And I think what's really

(01:23:53):
interesting about love now is that marrying my wife, who
I've been with now for twelve years and married for
nine and so it's the longest time I've ever spent
with anyone, and also the only person I've been with
after I left the monastery, and so there's been a
certain chapter of my life that I've been with her
for and I really feel she's taught me more about

(01:24:14):
love for two reasons. The first is she doesn't subscribe
to any of the movie Disney versions of love.

Speaker 1 (01:24:22):
Wow, oh my god, what education did she have?

Speaker 2 (01:24:27):
Literally? And the other part is that I think she's
the only person I've ever loved enough to be taught by,
which is like a really interesting part of love that
I think's missed. And I feel like love is the
humility to feel. It's humility on both parts because the

(01:24:48):
other person's not actively teaching and you're actively receiving. So
it's this really strange dance between It's almost like if
you're dancing, there has to be on both sides, because
it's not that one person leads and the other person follows.
It's the other person's kind of like should we do this?
Should we try this? There's an anxiety and a humility

(01:25:10):
and requesting that, and the other person gets to choose
to go with it or not go and say no,
we're going to go in this direction. And that's a
great dance to watch. And I feel like with my wife,
she's never directly taught me, but she's challenged me in
ways that if other people would ever might have left.

Speaker 1 (01:25:28):
Oh my god, how beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:25:29):
And so why am I staying? And then you go, Okay,
I'm staying because there's love. And so love is the
ability to be taught without teaching and learning without feeling
like you're being led or misled, and that for me
has been a really beautiful lesson. And if I just

(01:25:52):
said this to my wife out loud right now, she
would just laugh because she'd just find it funny. And
then she's yeah, she she also taught me how to
love me for who I was and not what I had.
Because I think a lot of men go through this,
at least men that I'm friends with them that I've
spoken to that we want people to respect us for

(01:26:12):
our success, yes, and revere us for our accomplishments. It's
how men have been adored since the beginning of time
for going out and getting the food or going out
there and winning the battle or conquering a nation, and
that's what you were known for. And so my wife's
been with me since before my career took off and

(01:26:32):
I had any success, and I think as I gained success,
I think my immaturity was to want her to love
me for that more and she never did. She didn't
do it, wow, and it drove me crazy. And she
didn't do it in a rejecting way or in a
in a it just didn't make a difference to her.

(01:26:53):
And it took me a long time to wrap my
head around that and realize, because you know, those are
the times when you could start like other people who
love you for you have achieved and what you have
built and all the rest of it. And I think
I just have so much respect.

Speaker 1 (01:27:07):
For her that you never gave in on that.

Speaker 2 (01:27:09):
Yeah, she never gave in, and she helped me love
myself for who I am. And I think that's the
point that I think I would have if I had
met someone else, I would have valued myself for very
different reasons. And knowing you're with someone who truly is
with you because of who you are and your character,
and that's what they honor and I think that word
honor and respect probably the last thing i'd say. I

(01:27:32):
think we always say like love is respect and based
on respect.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
But I wrote a list of things that I tried
to be clear with myself about what it is I
was really looking for and I really want And one
is someone that I can learn from. So it's really
interesting that you said learning without teaching, teaching without learning
and that kind of reciprocal. I really want to be
with someone that I can learn learn from, and I

(01:27:56):
hope that yeah, as you say, has the humility to
be willing to learn from me. But the other thing is,
I think it's why I was so obsessed with the
musical Hamilton and why say people have But like maybe
this is it's so funny that we're on the Purpose podcast,
but like, are you with someone who because obviously what
you have with someone is wonderful, right, like what you

(01:28:19):
two share together, But if you can be in service
of a vision that you both share, or at the
very least, are you willing to honor and give dignity
to the work of the other person and whatever their
vision or mission is in this world, that to me
seems far more sustainable than anything else, And so I

(01:28:40):
guess my big hope or wish would be that I
met someone who feels like what I want to do
in the world. Yes, that I'm important, but they also
feel that what I'm here to do is important to
them too, and in some way inter sex with what
they're here to do.

Speaker 2 (01:28:56):
I couldn't agree more. It's exactly what I was going
to say, is it. Yeah that I think the word
respect and relationships thrown around a lot, but this is
the deepest form of respect. Where there's a famous quote
that I don't know who said it, but there's a
and I would you know, you could take the genders
out of it now, but there's a famous quote that
says men marry women hoping they'll never change, and women

(01:29:20):
marry men hoping they can change them. And to me,
wanting someone to never change or wanting to be able
to change someone are both signs of disrespect, because I
think the greatest respect you can have is to respect
what this person values in this moment and how that evolves,

(01:29:41):
and that's their purpose. They're offering their values and at
no point that you're trying to change them. And I've
talked about this often where my wife and I. I
do this exercise with couples when I'm working with them,
but I've also done it in our relationship. And I
ask people to rank their top three priorities in order,
and people do it privately and then they share them.

(01:30:02):
And so generally one person will put themselves first, their
partner second, and then the kids third, and the other
person will put the kids first, the partner second, and
themselves third. And the person who put themselves third is
always mad at the person who put themselves first, because
there's this friction of well, wait a minute, how can

(01:30:24):
you not put the kids first? Or how can you
not put family first? Or whatever it may be in
your given situation, And the other person's like, well, if
I don't put myself first, then what can I give
to you all? And that kind of displays this dichotomy
and this belief we have around love means complete sacrifice,
and love means self sabotage to some degree, or love
means putting yourself aside, and the reality is, actually, no,

(01:30:46):
my goal is to make sure that you live your
purpose and greatest vision of yourself, and your purpose is
to help me do that. When we both do that,
everything's poetry, and my wife practice that and she does
it naturally, and it's hard to do that in a
world that constantly reminds you both that sometimes the other
person isn't where you are, or you know, the idea

(01:31:09):
of why haven't you had kids yet? Or when are
you going to be in the same country for longer
than a month, or whatever they may be, because it
doesn't fit into the norm of what relationships look like.
And I was thinking about that with you as well,
Like you know, I know you you talked about how
getting asked the question when are you getting married?

Speaker 1 (01:31:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:31:29):
Or why ain't you married? Yeah? Yes, And there's something
every woman's hearing. Well, what's your reaction when you hear that?

Speaker 1 (01:31:36):
I'm just so happy not to be divorced yet, Like
that sounds like a really negative answer, but I just
like I think that we are. We're being pressured and
forced into this thing that, like I believe is a
kind of miracle. I might never be worthy of it.

(01:31:57):
I hope it happens to me, but like I don't
feel entitled to it, like it will either be part
of my purpose here and my destiny or it won't.
And I think the way we treat it as though, well,
why haven't you, And this is something that has to

(01:32:19):
happen in this certain time span and at a certain
age in this kind of way. Is like the least
romantic thing I can possibly think of, Like truly, like
if I had tried to get married any point basically
before about a year ago, it would have been carnage.

(01:32:41):
I just didn't know myself well enough yet. I didn't
have a clear enough idea of what my purpose, my vision, like,
how I was going to be of service. I didn't
know where I really felt like I needed to be.
I think I have some of those answers now, so
when I meet someone, I can say, Hi, I'm emma,

(01:33:03):
this is what I care about, this is where the
people I love the most live, this is where it's
meaningful for me to be in the world. And then
they can decide whether they can see that there's a
way that I can serve what they're trying to do
and they can serve what I'm trying to do. But
before that they would have just got like a very

(01:33:25):
mixed signal. I mean, there's some parts of me that
have stayed utterly consistent, but there are some parts that
like I was really still teasing out and figuring out.
And I think it's such a violence, and it's such
a cruelty on people, and especially young people, I think,
to make and especially women, to make them feel like

(01:33:45):
they have no worth or like they haven't succeeded yet
in life because they haven't forced to its culmination something
that I just don't think can or should ever be forced.
It's something that like, honestly, I feel like I've had
to earn, I've had to work for to be in

(01:34:07):
a place where I feel like I can look someone
in the eye and be able to tell them who
I am and to have some idea and it will
change and grow of what I want and what I'm
here to do. That takes work, Like I have, like
really sat with myself in a lot of discomfort and

(01:34:29):
asked myself a lot of very difficult questions. To be
at that point, it hasn't happened to me yet.

Speaker 2 (01:34:34):
I do think everyone's worthy of love, But I like
I and I don't think that's what you're saying either.

Speaker 1 (01:34:40):
Yeah, I guess maybe like partnership or marriage, I guess
is what we're both saying is like almost a different game,
like it's it's almost a different playing field actually, like
actually co joining and like properly sharing your life with
someone and being in partnership with them seems like it's
its own thing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
It is. It takes so much work, and it takes
so much adjustment and adapting more than compromising and sacrificing.
There's so much flexibility, there's so much allowing. It's so
different at different times, Like sometimes patience looks like being
by that person's side and saying nothing, and sometimes patients

(01:35:26):
means being halfway across the world and not communicating, and
sometimes patients looks like talking and listening, Like you know,
it's patients doesn't look like one thing over a lifespan.
And there are parts of my wife that have stayed
exactly the same in twelve years, and there are parts
that have completely changed. And I have a choice every

(01:35:48):
time that happens, to learn to love the new or not.
And that's a choice I have to make and she
has to make as well. And so there's so much
constant choosing and cont evolving that it's very easy to
just it's very easy to be like I chose them
the day we got married, And people always asking me
that I'm like, I don't think I even knew who

(01:36:09):
my wife was married. I think about it, it was
like I loved her, but I had no idea, And
that's what it should feel like. I didn't think if
I was here to say, like, yeah, the wedding day
was one of the best days of my life, but
it's not the day I loved my wife the most. Yeah,
because I didn't really even know what I was getting

(01:36:30):
myself into.

Speaker 1 (01:36:31):
It's amazing. I was thinking recently about trust and telling
the truth, and I realized the scary, crazy thing about
it seems to me about intimacy is that it seems
to be conditional on your ability to keep telling the
truth and perhaps even revealing deeper and deeper and deeper

(01:36:53):
truths at the risk that that truth might mean that
that person might not continue to choose you. Yes, So,
even though you've been in this relationship for twelve years,
like every day, you have to choose to risk it
all if you want there to be continued intimacy by

(01:37:13):
continuing to tell your truth to this other person. And
that seems so courageous to me, Like, in order for
there to be genuine and connection and closeness you have
to be willing to risk it all sometimes or like
probably almost constantly, and that it seems like it takes
so much courage because we don't like change. We don't

(01:37:34):
want things to change. So you also want a relationship
that's alive and still living and breathing and not some
like dead thing.

Speaker 2 (01:37:41):
Yeah, so well said. And what you're saying is like
that feeling of when you're not actually being truthful consistently.
That's when we feel people have had big changes in
their life because if you had the consistent truthfulness, the
change felt more smooth and gradual, Whereas when the change
came like you know, a wrecking ball, where I have

(01:38:04):
this feeling and I'm just telling you it it's because
I didn't tell you about all the little, the little
incremental changes and sometimes you don't know it's even happening.
So it's not your fault or this is not something
that you can say has to be the case. But
I think that's why being more truthful and more honest,
more regularly and consistently allows for the change to feel

(01:38:24):
more gradual. It's almost like going back to your dance analogy,
like if you're about to throw someone up in the
air and catch them. Yes, there has to have been
a touch or a preparation before someone just grabs hold
of you and throws you in the air. And it's like, well,
I would have liked to warning, yes. And that's why
your analogy is so good, because it's you would throw

(01:38:45):
someone up in a dance at some point if you
were both talented and gifted enough. But there would have
been a preparation. There would have been a nod, there
would have been a look, a feel, a touch or
to set that up. And like one of the hardest
questions you talked about asking answer it asking yourself difficult,
ques and I want to ask you something about that.
But one thing I've said to my wife is, if
you ever fall out of love with me, please tell me,

(01:39:07):
because I don't want to live a day without love.
I'm really confident about the fact that I'm worthy of
love and that I want to experience love in my life.
If you ever fall out of me, just tell me
it's okay, because I don't have the desire to stay
somewhere for any other reason. And it sounds risky saying
that and extreme, but to me, it's a greater risk

(01:39:28):
to have spent ten extra years with someone and then
they tell me I haven't really loved you for the
last five ten years. And then I'm like, I've lived
without love for ten years in my life and I
don't want to be in that place because I've seen
people go through that and not be happy. And so
it does come with a humility and a openness to
have very difficult conversations and not to force something that, oh,

(01:39:52):
it's been going to get great for twelve years, it
has to it should do, it must do, and it's like,
well maybe no, Like, yes, if it does, it's great
and it is right now, but why should right now
be a prediction for how you feel in fifteen years
with everything else that's going to change.

Speaker 1 (01:40:09):
I think if I knew I really couldn't meet the
needs of someone and they couldn't meet my needs, if
I really couldn't make them happy and they couldn't make
me happy, like forcing them to stay in that situation,
it's just really that makes love impossible, like the gates.
So I totally get what you're saying. And my mum
said this thing to me, which was like, you want

(01:40:31):
to be with someone because you want them, not because
you need them. And I think maybe another reason why
I didn't get married younger is because I think maybe
I would have married someone not knowing who I was,
and I would have needed them, maybe not wanted them.

(01:40:51):
And I think now I have a life that's whole
and complete as it is, and I would be making
a choice from a place of I just want you
and I don't need you. But I just want you,
and I don't. I don't think I was that woman
five years ago.

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
Yeah, I love that. And there's so much, so much
to be said for attracting from a place of peace,
because you know what peace feels like, and so then
anyone or anything that comes into your life.

Speaker 1 (01:41:24):
I'm what feeling satisfied feels like.

Speaker 2 (01:41:26):
Satisfied is probably even a better way, and that feeling
of I know what it feels like to be satisfied,
and so I now know whether someone makes me more
satisfied or less.

Speaker 1 (01:41:36):
I know what my baseline. You don't know what your
baseline happy is, then how do you You've got no
idea of knowing what's going on at all.

Speaker 2 (01:41:43):
And that's not feeling of being complete or having it
all figured out. It's like, I know what satisfy is
a great word. It's like, I know what it feels
like to be at peace with myself or satisfied with myself,
and now everyone can show me, yeah, where that pendulum swings.

Speaker 1 (01:41:59):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (01:42:00):
One thing you said which which really resonated with me,
is that you've had to ask yourself so many hard
questions to do the work. And I want to ask you,
what's one of the hardest questions you've ever had to
ask yourself? If you could recall, well.

Speaker 1 (01:42:13):
The first one that comes to mind, and then maybe
I'll dig for a deep or different one. Is like
to have to admit to myself or ask myself the
question of like, right now, have the career and the
life that like looks like the dream, But are you
really happy? Emma? Are you really healthy? Are you really happy?

(01:42:36):
Like is this really what you want? And to be
at that point and like realize and have to admit
to myself that I wasn't and I didn't was one
of the scariest things I've ever had to do, because
you know, I basically had to ask myself on a
daily basis, like I felt like I was crazy and

(01:42:57):
walking away from something without knowing what You're walking towards
was not having the answers, but leaving something that was
that the world considered to be of such high value,
such a high value kind of moment in my professional
life and career. I think that was a real sitting

(01:43:21):
with that was a real moment of reckoning of like,
can you tell yourself the truth? Can you live with
your truth? Can you accept the fact that for most
other people your truth is pretty confusing and unpalatable. That
was definitely hard moment of sitting. More recently, because I've

(01:43:42):
been being my own partner asking myself, are you really
living your values things that you preach? Are you actually
aligned and actually looking at some spaces in my life
where I was like, shit, no, not at all. I'm
actually not doing what I talk about. And I need

(01:44:04):
to like create some sort of urgency or a deadline
for that so that I make sure that I am
a persitive integrity. I purport to be someone that cares
about the world and about the planet and sustainability. And
you know, there are some things I was doing. Was
it enough by my own standards, not by anyone else's,
just by my own? Probably not? But what's nice is

(01:44:29):
I actually have the time now to be like, Okay,
we need to do about it, get on with it,
and like.

Speaker 2 (01:44:35):
But those are thank you for those. Those are great questions,
really really great questions, and so hard for so many reasons,
especially when you talked about like when you're stepping away
from and stepping towards, did you have people in the
industry or like people that you could talk to that
felt the same way, Like did you have co stars
or friends or wow, I.

Speaker 1 (01:44:55):
Know I don't know anyone else. I'll never say that
I quit acting or be an actor. I'm still open
to doing it again. But I certainly made a decision
to take time to figure out to not know and
to you know, I had like this whole disassembling the

(01:45:16):
structure that's needed to carry the load of once and
it's like there's an agent and a publicist and a
manager and a personal assistant, and there's all these people
and lives who are intertwined with mine. And navigating and
caring for and negotiating that with people as well was

(01:45:36):
like it was really tricky, and although I was just
bloody terrified, Like I think there's a kind of infantilization
that can happen when you work as much as I did,
and a kind of lot of independence that means that
you're like, oh my god, can I even do my

(01:45:58):
life if I don't have this like army of people
who are like helping me do the most menial and
basic of things, Like can I actually like do this
stuff myself? And I don't even say that in terms
of like capability, but like just from the place of like,
it's difficult for me to walk down the street sometimes.

(01:46:18):
So if I'm going to start to take on truly
the responsibility for most of my life myself, like, what's
that going to be? Like? Can I really do that stuff?
I think fame makes you feel like you can't do
things for yourself in a way that can really disempower
you and move your confidence and autonomy as a human being.

(01:46:40):
That's that's really disabling and.

Speaker 2 (01:46:43):
For everyone who's wondering. Yeah, Emma called me up and
I was like, should I speak in publicists? She's like, nope,
my publicist. Like I was like, do I need to
check on the manager? Nope, I am my manager, And
like that was literally the conversation we had this podcast. Heself.
There was no booker, there was no booking system, there
was no, there was no reach out. It was literally
Emma doing it herself, which is proof you are living

(01:47:05):
your values. Thanks and you are aligned with what you're saying.
I wanted to people to know that thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:47:11):
That What's so funny though, now it's like, because I
do everything myself, there's like a fifty percent chance you
would have not thought it was me. Or like sometimes when.

Speaker 2 (01:47:19):
I reached out to people, I had plenty of moments
to take I was like, wait a minute, like very
very amount of followers, I think it's not me.

Speaker 1 (01:47:30):
And so like I have a fifty to fifty rate
of people actually just like not responding to me because
they don't think I'd be reaching out myself.

Speaker 2 (01:47:38):
That's real. I had to do a secondary I think
I rejected this morning.

Speaker 1 (01:47:44):
Definitely, am I going to turn up in some like
catfridge situation?

Speaker 2 (01:47:49):
It's wild.

Speaker 1 (01:47:50):
Yeah, Oddly, sometimes it takes more work me trying to
do things myself than through the system.

Speaker 2 (01:47:57):
Yeah, I know, you did great job, but that yeah,
those hard questions that you asked yourself, I mean, what
was it that gave you courage to walk a path
where you don't know the next three steps When you
have an entire career lined up on this. You have
an amazing career. Every movie you've been in has been

(01:48:20):
magical and amazing. Like it's when you look at your
portfolio of choices, like they're all brilliant performances, they're great
films that and you only would have more of that.
So it's also not like you're leaving a career that's
kind of had its you know what I mean, it's
at a place where no business oriented person could imagine why.

(01:48:42):
And so what gives you courage when one side is
so clear and one side is not clear at all?

Speaker 1 (01:48:49):
Again, I'm going to tell the honest version of this story.
I'd love to tell you that it was like this
incredible courage and determination I have inside of me, And
yes there's part of that, not going to like completely
erase my role in all of this, but I think
a big part was that it was coming to a

(01:49:12):
point with my health and nervous system where I was
starting to hit a point of not no return. But
like it's interesting, I eat well, I do yoga, I
do medicine, I do all the things right, But I

(01:49:33):
think I was using those as a way of mitigating
how much stress I was under as opposed to actually,
what those things are really for are compasses and points
towards our truth, and I so was. I was using
them as a way of like bolstering myself and allowing

(01:49:58):
myself to continue down a part that actually was kind
of wrecking me. And I think it was just like
my immune system couldn't pretend anymore. I was on seven
or eight packets of an antibiotic every year because my
immune system was so low that I would just constantly
be getting I just constantly be getting sick and a

(01:50:19):
science infection and whatever else. Like my body just started
being like no. I went from being someone who I
would say it still handle stress and pressure well, and
in the moment I could always do it, but the
cost afterwards was starting to get more and more serious,

(01:50:40):
to the point where it was like I'd always turned
down or I actually remember I was in my early
twenties when a publicist first offered me a beta blocker.
I was nervous before a carpet, and it's the only
other time I ever took anything. And I was fine
for the two hours after I took it, and then

(01:51:01):
I got back to the room and when my feelings
came back to me, I was like overwrought with grief
and feeling of having blocked it, and so I'd always
and after that, I never allowed anyone to give me
anything again, even though I was offered things multiple times,

(01:51:23):
and doctors just wanted to give me things for jet
lag and for sleep and for nerves, and oh, everyone
takes it. This is you know, there's no shame in
this or whatever. But I just I felt like in
order to keep going, I was going to have to
make a decision of like, are you okay with being
low level unwell and medicated essentially, And I just knew

(01:51:48):
that wasn't a choice for me. So in a way,
I have my body to think, because my body just
I didn't want to ignore my body anymore. And it
didn't matter how many silent retreats I want, or how
much yogurt I did, or what like what new thing
I did to try and take care of myself, my
body was done. And that was then, I think, when

(01:52:12):
I went away and found a relationship with myself and
my practice and just having trust and faith in a
way that I never had before, and I started listening
more carefully to like these little whispers of like, oh,
like maybe this should be the thing you do, or

(01:52:34):
like even coming and doing this, of like I think
you should go and do this podcast just listening to
myself the clues basically and listening to the universe whatever
that means. But I never had that before. I never
had I never knew how to listen for those things
before I truly went away and had nothing for a while.

(01:52:54):
So that was probably the best result of all that.

Speaker 2 (01:53:00):
Yeah, And I think it still takes so much courage,
because it does even though you didn't see it that
way and you may not have noticed it, it still
takes so much courage to listen to your body because
it is easy to keep medicating in all the ways
to break it anyway. Yeah, and to push it to
the edges and the limits of its ability, and because

(01:53:24):
you're so addicted or intoxicated by the success or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:53:28):
Maybe I guess the couragest part was just knowing I
didn't want to numb out. That was the point at
which it got too big of a cost, because I
was like, Okay, if I feel like I need to be,
I'm at the point where the price is too high. Now.

Speaker 2 (01:53:42):
Yeah, I loved what you said about when they're meant
to be compassed to our truth and not like this
band aid pacification of And I've.

Speaker 1 (01:53:52):
Been highly, really effectively using those band aids. They all
carry you far, like I had a lot of practice.

Speaker 2 (01:53:57):
I think that's how they're presented now too. It's become
this and that's why when you said that, then you
it's almost like I'm trying to think of it a
good metaphor, but the one that's coming to my mind,
it's almost like driving to the grocery store in a
sports car and it's like a sports cars made for
this high speed track, like that's what it's for, yep,
But you're using it just to drive twenty five miles

(01:54:20):
an hour, yeah, to the grocery store. And it's like, no,
it's it has so much more capability and ability to
take you somewhere phenomenally, but you're using it for a
really simple basic task.

Speaker 1 (01:54:31):
Not gonna lie though. I remember when I did my
first for pastener and sat long enough, and I went
to my teacher and I was like, what have I done?

Speaker 2 (01:54:43):
Go and tell me about this?

Speaker 1 (01:54:45):
What have I done?

Speaker 2 (01:54:45):
You mean?

Speaker 1 (01:54:47):
I because in a way it was almost like I
realized once you start paying attention to your truth. It's
very difficult to go back. And in some way it
felt like I was like, oh my god, I don't
know if I like this. I don't know if I
like this. I maybe I want to go back. And

(01:55:07):
once you step through it, you you kind of can't
go back. And I remember him looking at me calmly
and saying, could you even go back now, even if
you wanted to? And I was like, I guess not.
I guess this is the path I've chosen to walk.
And to some degree, in the same way, they're getting
cast as hermione and like making my peace with the

(01:55:28):
way that that changed my life were my marching orders.
I think trusting that is that's that's all I can
do at this point. Idly one for dear life.

Speaker 2 (01:55:41):
Yeah, it's like the mafia. Once you're in you know
too much. Yeah, it's true.

Speaker 1 (01:55:46):
I'll never forget that moment. I'll never forget. Oh no,
this is undoable now, isn't it. And he was like
kind of yeah. I was like, oh no, it's so uncomfortable.
It's so uncomfortable being asked with myself, and then I
have to be honest with other people as well, this
is a nightmare.

Speaker 2 (01:56:03):
Why did I do this? Why am I here? Oh god,
I'm just imagining you retreat, like coming out of it
and just having that reaction. Yeah, it's so funny, so good.
That needs to get added to the plane.

Speaker 1 (01:56:20):
Okay, that actually, yeah, I wrote something. I wrote something
about my doing the pastor for the first for the
first time, because my god, that's such a it's such
a roller coaster. Yeah, it's such a roller coaster. Anything
you want to share about it, sure, yeah, I don't
want to brought you to death. I mean, I think
what was funny was like, I have this picture that

(01:56:41):
I drew of day day two, and it's like green
and pink and there's butterflies on it, and it literally
says I think, it says this is so embarrassing. It
says I am beautiful. I just felt like I was like,
oh my god, this is blows. I was like riding
this wave of like meditation, ecstasy, basically whatever dopamine here

(01:57:05):
I was getting from that was wild. I just felt unbelievable.
And then I surfed that wave straight into some kind
of like brick wall of Oh my god, like all
the things in life that you think are outside of
you actually live inside you. And so even when you're

(01:57:26):
like in this beautiful place, on this gorgeous meditation retreat
with all of these wonderful, enlightened people, everything starts to
drive you crazy, and even the like salt shaker and
the pepper pot in front of you start to take
on the shapes of your real life, and you realize
that your mind just starts creating all this drama for you,
even though there's nothing going on literally, And it was

(01:57:49):
just it was such a wild experience to kind of
sit there and be like, oh my god, I'm creating
all of my own drama. This is a night it's me.

Speaker 2 (01:58:01):
It's me. I'm the problem.

Speaker 1 (01:58:03):
And I was like, I can't stay here. I can't
do this. This is way too hard living with myself
and my own thoughts is going to try this is unbearable.
I can't do this. That was a really big learning
And what I have to remember all the time is
like I as a perfectionist, which again is a kind
of violence on yourself. I would try to like shame

(01:58:26):
and blame myself into and like kind of shake myself
up and give myself these kinds of like talkings to
to make myself do stuff and sometimes, to be honest
with you, they work in the short term and in
the long term they fail you miserably, like they just
do not work. The only way that I have learned

(01:58:47):
to change my patterns, to show up for myself better,
to change in the ways I want to change and
grow is to be loving towards myself. So getting to
be in the room with that person at that moment
was a massive gift.

Speaker 2 (01:59:08):
Someone that you're going to attend a class with can
become such a big teacher for you when you allow
it to be. And yeah, you know, someone who wasn't
the leader or the guide of the group can can
have such an impact on you. Speaking aout love, did

(01:59:35):
you want to share the Is it the practice that
you went through recently with? Is that what you? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:59:40):
The ring?

Speaker 2 (01:59:41):
Yeah there?

Speaker 1 (01:59:42):
Ye oh my god, that's sweet of you to remember
I mentioned that. Yeah, I I guess. Having gone through
this odyssey, which has been the last I guess seven years,
I was like, Okay, I kind of feel like I've
got to a place will continue forever where I want

(02:00:02):
to celebrate where I ended up after I kind of
left land. It felt like and yeah, I did a
ritual with or I guess, just a day of celebrating
with my friends and chosen family, and they each brought
me this ring, which has twenty two pedals on it,

(02:00:27):
and each of them bought one. And I've just never
owned anything so valuable in my life because to me,
it represents the life that I've built, which was the
one that I really wanted, which was one that was
made up of community and my roots and faith and trust.

(02:00:49):
And in some funny way, it signals to me that
even though I have no outwood signs of my success
save for this crazy one woman play I've written, I
don't even have my degree yet, and it signals to
me that for me achieved what I wanted to achieve

(02:01:10):
for myself. Wow, So that's pretty cool. I love that
every time I look down on my finger, I can
like see all of the faces of the people who
bought it for me. You're amazing at holding space. You're
so kind the amount of people who probably sat in
this chair and then as emotional as I have, and
you don't turn away. It's amazing.

Speaker 2 (02:01:33):
It's easy with you.

Speaker 1 (02:01:34):
That's very kind.

Speaker 2 (02:01:36):
Thanks you. It's really easy because it's really heartfelt. And
you've shared so much of me before today and today
that I felt like you shared you created that space
for me to sit with you before today and today.

Speaker 1 (02:01:51):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:01:52):
What makes a real friend? So you said you had
twenty two two twenty two yeah, two friends? What defines
a good friend? For you?

Speaker 3 (02:02:01):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (02:02:01):
My god? For me, I've never killed anyone in my life,
and I have no intention of killing anyone, but like,
is the person who you can call when you're like
they would help you carry the dead pockets? You know
what I mean? Like the person you call you like shit,
I think I've done this thing and I need you
to like either tell me I'm crazy or tell me

(02:02:23):
I'm not crazy, or tell me the truth or help
me fix it or I don't know that. I think
it's like the people that God, it's the people that
you just like do not have to have airs and
graces with, and who you can just be like this
just happened and it's such a disaster and yeah, and

(02:02:43):
I don't know people. I think also who can handle
your truths, your real truths and vulnerabilities like their sacred
and with care. I think that's been very important for
me because I think maybe part of my bravado is
I'll make a joke of or I'll be brave about

(02:03:06):
things I don't feel very brave about, and it takes
someone who knows me quite well to go she's making
a joke about this, Yeah, she's like actually dying inside
and I kind of know that and like I'm going
to hold her through it.

Speaker 2 (02:03:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:03:21):
I think real friends are the ones when you're in
a really tight corner and not just that will like
show up begrudgingly, but be like, what are we dealing
with today, and like maybe we'll enjoy that or see
that as like an honor and a privilege. Actually, I
think that's been a big learning for me, and it's
an honor and a gift when someone asks you for

(02:03:43):
help or when they need you. And I think I
used to feel really embarrassed about needing anything from anyone
or asking for help. I used to see it as
like a great shame, like something I was really embarrassed
to do. And now I see it as like, I guess,
like knowing how I feel when someone asks me for
help that I really love and how amazing it feels

(02:04:06):
to be able to be there for someone else I
try to remind myself that when I'm feeling like I
couldn't possibly burden someone else with something, I remind myself
and do you remember how good it felt that someone
like asked you to show up for them and that
you got to be there for them at their worst

(02:04:28):
or darkest. And so I think coming to understand, like
I think I also confused codependency or like I don't know.
I didn't we are so interdependent as species, and and
like there's no shame in needing and wanting other people.

(02:04:51):
I didn't. I didn't understand. I didn't understand, and I do.

Speaker 2 (02:04:56):
I love that, and I love how it started as
if I have a kills, which I.

Speaker 1 (02:05:02):
Haven't.

Speaker 2 (02:05:04):
So good, it's so good. So it's like I did
not expect you to say that it was so good,
so surprising. I love it, but no, it's so it's
so true. Like when I when I left a monastery,
and even though I was with my wife and we
go into a relationship and we're dating, I used to
always feel like I didn't I always I had this
false mindset because of my immaturity and understand what being

(02:05:26):
a monk was in that it was in this independent
way of not needing or wanting anyone, and that we
were in a relationship but it was great, but like
that wasn't and I held that immature and I probably
verbalized it to her too many times for too long
in the beginning of our relationship and no idea where
she stayed. It's uh, it took recently. It was this

(02:05:46):
was so recent, This was like maybe a couple of
months ago. Well, I realized that I shouldn't have said
that years ago. But then a couple of months ago,
my wife said to me, she goes, you're my calm,
like you can't my nervous system, and I was like,
you're my joy. You bring joy to every part of
my life. And it was like that exchange was so
needed and so powerful after having for so long feeling like,

(02:06:08):
oh I have everything I need anyway, and I do.
I genuinely believe that. But it's what you said, is
that we're interdependent for a reason.

Speaker 1 (02:06:15):
Yes, we couldn't regulate.

Speaker 2 (02:06:17):
My wife mat had so much. It's like saying, I
don't need salt added on to this meal, and like
the meal is great, and it's like I don't need
any more salt, and it's like, well, now if you
had a little bit, so make a bit better, and
it's like and we kind of live in that life
of like I don't want to add anything to this,
and it's it's almost a defense mechanism because we're so

(02:06:37):
scared that there may not be someone to add. And
I've lived there, so I that, Yeah, that resonated very strongly.

Speaker 1 (02:06:44):
I think that was one of the other gifts actually
of getting to a point where because I used to
be this like I'm so tough and in dependent and
I can do anything person and being at the point
where I was like, ah shit, I actually think I
I'm like not okay and my body forcing me to
ask other people for help was the biggest gift of

(02:07:08):
my life because it brought me so much closer to
other people and I learned that not only is it
not a burden, it's genuinely, yeah, a privilege and a
gift sometimes to have someone ask you that ask you
that question or like be honest about the ways that
they need you. And it's crazy how long it takes

(02:07:32):
these things.

Speaker 2 (02:07:33):
Absolutely, You've done so much in a work and self work,
and I'm wondering, what's what's the work you've been avoiding.
What's the work you've been putting off?

Speaker 1 (02:07:43):
Wow? I think it's probably something around now tying it
all together. I think in some ways, me being here
today as me trying to do the piece I've been
a avoiding maybe, which is like, Okay, you know you

(02:08:05):
want to show up as a full, integrated whole self
and not compartmentalize and split and fragment yourself in a
way that keeps you safe. And that compartmentalization did keep
me safe and felt very necessary for a long time,
because I was trying to keep some walls up where

(02:08:27):
I could nurture myself and learn and grow and then
be ready to share those pieces. But I think it's
probably figuring out how to avoid the pieces that I
know aren't good for me and that are genuinely just toxic.

Speaker 2 (02:08:48):
But to.

Speaker 1 (02:08:51):
Yeah, I have the courage to show up now in
whatever form that is and trust again, whether that's a
person or it's making something, or it's kind of okay,
have you learned enough that you can integrate and share

(02:09:15):
now that you've done this in a work on your own?

Speaker 2 (02:09:19):
Yeah, And that feels a resonate, ok. Yeah, Yeah, it's hard,
it's hard. It's hard to verbalize. It's almost like it
is that you've been private for so long. Yeah, and
you've been working in private. An't your fascinations, your curiosities,
your friends, you're inner work, And then to actually come
out and talk about what that period has been like

(02:09:41):
publicly is something you can keep pushing off.

Speaker 1 (02:09:45):
And and maybe the how that ties into partnership is
that I've realized actually that some of the people I've
been attracting on the dating front thing, they're dating some
previous version of me who I'm who still exists in

(02:10:05):
some ways, but who isn't actually who I am now.
And I realized I was like, oh, I'm still getting
sent people who like are seeing someone who was part
of the picture, but not the whole picture. And it's
starting to feel uncomfortable. Two not feel like I'm telling

(02:10:31):
this part of the story, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (02:10:34):
It's even hard for you to be like, well, these
are the parts that are still there, and these are
it's not a didactic process, No, it's not an equation
where you can go, well, these are the parts that
I've kept. These are the parts that are not like
it doesn't work, Like, no, it.

Speaker 1 (02:10:49):
Doesn't work like that. It doesn't work like that, but
I'm still getting requests that want to drag me a
little bit more into a version of myself who was
great and she was doing great stuff. But I think
there's a part of me now that really feels like
being able to speak to you one on one in

(02:11:10):
this kind of setting, as opposed to what I used
to do, which would be an enormous audience and there'd
be like three hundred people there, and of course there's
intimacy you can find in a room like that, but
like the truth is, it's really difficult to find the
kind of depth and the kind of connections that I
know are the ones that nourish me personally, and that's

(02:11:32):
different for everyone, but that just aren't allowing me to
have the thing that I know is the real thing
that I'm actually seeking and what I used to go
into lots of other environments seeking and thinking i'd be
able to get and keep and just not not being
able to find.

Speaker 2 (02:11:47):
And it's something I wanted to ask you about that's
difficult and challenging because it's something you spoke about earlier
as to being such a big part of your life,
an important part of your life. But recently there's been
so many conversations and comments directly from JK. Rowling, whether

(02:12:07):
it's her saying she'd never forgive you for your views,
or the fact that when she was asked what ruins
the movies for her, she named yourself and some of
your co stars. And I imagine that's an extremely difficult
thing when you've been a part of someone's world, when
you've felt connected to their work, and then for it

(02:12:28):
now to kind of be a four one eighty and
for someone to publicly say these things that can be
quite quite extremely hurtful. Actually, how do you think about that?

Speaker 1 (02:12:40):
I really don't believe that by having had that experience
and holding the love and support and views that I
have mean that I can't and don't treasure and the

(02:13:01):
person that I that I had personal experiences with, I
will never believe that one negates the other, and that
my experience of that person I don't get to keep
and cherish to come back to our earlier thing. Like,

(02:13:24):
I just don't think these things are either or. I
think it's my deepest wish that I hope people who
don't agree with my opinion will love me, and I
hope I can keep loving people who I don't necessarily
share the same opinion with, and I think that's a
very very important way for me that I need to

(02:13:49):
be able to move through life. I just really, I
guess I to circle back around. I really do believe
in having conversations and that those are really important, and
that I don't know. I guess where I've landed is

(02:14:15):
it's not so much what we say or what we believe,
but very often how we say it that's really important,
and that's really frustrating and not what you want to
hear when you're really angry and upset with someone. But
I don't know. I just see this world right now

(02:14:36):
where we seem to be giving permission for this kind
of like throwing out of people, or that people are disposable,
and I just think that's I will always think that's wrong.
I always I just believe that no one is, no

(02:14:59):
one's disposable, and everyone, as far as possible, whatever the
conversation is, should and can be treated with at the
very least dignity and respect.

Speaker 2 (02:15:15):
Thank you for challenging us, and yeah, it takes a lot.
I think that's what we're all being challenged to do
is try and hold two truths at once. And yes,
those two truths don't have to be complimentary, but they
can stand honor.

Speaker 1 (02:15:31):
I think the thing I'm most upset about is that
a conversation was never made possible.

Speaker 2 (02:15:38):
You remain open for that dialogue.

Speaker 1 (02:15:40):
Yeah, and I always will. I believe in that. I
believe in that completely. I believe in that completely. I
just don't. Yeah, I just don't want to say anything
that continues to weaponize a really like toxic debate and conversation,

(02:16:01):
which is maybe why I don't well, it is why
I don't comment or like continue to comment, not because
I don't care about her or about the issue, but
because I just the way that the conversation is being
had it feels really painful to me. And so that's

(02:16:23):
why that's why that decision.

Speaker 2 (02:16:26):
Yeah, I really appreciate that mindset and deeply, deeply feel
like if people were challenged to go there themselves, Like
it takes a lot to think that way and feel
that way. Yeah, but it's what it's what healing really
requires across you know, around the world. And I can't
imagine how many young people who look up to you

(02:16:48):
and people who look up to you will feel the
same way to recognize that that's how we engage, that's
what we look for. We it's not that we're trying
to make everything pretty and perfect, it's that no engage
in a conversation.

Speaker 1 (02:17:02):
Yes, her kindness and words of encouragement and that steadfastness,
that and also honestly, just as a young woman, for
her to have written that character created that world, given
me an opportunity which, to be honest, barely exists in

(02:17:22):
the history of English literature. You know, how can I
There's just no world in which I could ever cancel
her out or cancel that out. For anything, it has
to remain true. It is true. And this is where

(02:17:45):
this like holding of these I just don't know what
else to do other than hold these two seemingly incompatible
things together at the same time and just hope maybe
they will one day resolve or co join themselves, and
maybe accept that they never will, but that they can
both still be true. And I can love her, I

(02:18:08):
can know she loved me. I could be grateful to her.
I can know the things that she's said are true,
and that can be this whole other thing. And my
job feels like to just hold just to hold all
of it. But the bigger thing is just what she's

(02:18:31):
done will never be taken away from me.

Speaker 2 (02:18:34):
Thanks for saying such a powerful example. That beautiful left.
Scott Fitzgerald quote that the sign of a first rate
intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas at
the same time and still retain the ability to function.
So it goes on to say one should therefore be
able to see that the world is hopeless, but still

(02:18:56):
be determined to make it otherwise. And it's like, that's.

Speaker 1 (02:19:01):
That's Scott Fitzgerald said that. Wow, he ran deeper than
I knew. Wow, that's incredible.

Speaker 2 (02:19:10):
It's one of my fast Wow.

Speaker 1 (02:19:11):
Wells on you for remembering that second part. Wow, he's
made me like Fitzgerald. I mean, I liked him, don't like.

Speaker 2 (02:19:18):
To me. It's my It's one of my favorites. That's
so good, so good.

Speaker 1 (02:19:22):
That's so good.

Speaker 2 (02:19:24):
Yeah, Emma. For someone who has tried to stay out
of the public eye, you've still been vocal about causes.
You believe in things that you stand for, yes, and
that always seems to get attention and reaction. And so
when you shared online your solidarity for Palestine, the former

(02:19:48):
Israeli you an ambassador. Danny Dunnan called you an anti
Semite and and his tweet said ten points from Gryffindor
for being an anti Semite. What goes through your mind
when you see that this happened?

Speaker 1 (02:20:07):
This happened a few years ago. Now. I think what
concerned me at the time was the way that that
label was being used. And I think even now I
see that playing out where we aren't people don't feel
like they can talk about what's happening safely. This duality

(02:20:33):
created where we don't seem able to care about the
victims of terrorism and care about the genocide that's happening
in Palestine at the same time, and both things have
to be allowed to be true. You have to be
allowed to care about fifty thousand civilians dying, seventeen thousand

(02:20:57):
of which are children, and care deeply about the victims
of this awful terrorist attack.

Speaker 2 (02:21:08):
I appreciate you sharing that. And Yeah, it seems like
that belief system you have in yes and in this
and it kind of runs through so many yeah areas
of your life, Yeah, personal and beyond.

Speaker 1 (02:21:23):
Yes. I think that's I think that's true. I think
that's true.

Speaker 2 (02:21:29):
I hope that you've felt you've been able to share
the parts of yourself and the version of yourself that
you wanted to and intended to. I hope.

Speaker 1 (02:21:38):
So I feel very hot, and I feel very hot,
and I feel a little bit like is this room
even real? Like are we Is this like a god
our play? Well, like in some sort of existential room
that doesn't exist. I feel a little bit like that.
But as long as this was real and these are

(02:21:59):
these falls are actually here, then yes, I do feel
that way, and I or like I've done everything I
can in a context that's still I can still see
cameras and lights, and I know there's a person behind me.
But I feel, to the extent to which I can
humanly do, that I've shown up for myself and for

(02:22:25):
you in a way, and the invitation that this podcast
is and the work that you do in the world,
I've answered that invitation. So I feel I feel good
about that, and I've.

Speaker 2 (02:22:38):
Got I know it's a bit hot, but I've got
a couple of questions. Episode. Yes, these are your final five.
They have to be answering one word to one sentence maximum.
But okay, I will probably ignore that rule, as I
always do amazing. So question number one, okay, is we
ask these to everyone who's ever been on the show,

(02:22:58):
what is the best advice you've ever heard or received.

Speaker 1 (02:23:02):
I'm going to cheat slightly if you'll allow it.

Speaker 2 (02:23:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:23:07):
I read Emergen Strategy by Adrian Marie Brown, was given
to me as a gift by my friend A Marie
for my thirtieth birthday. And I think that being a good,
pious Protestant English girl, I really believed that if I
worked hard enough, and if I was kind of saintly enough,

(02:23:29):
that someone would see my good deeds and all of
my hard work and like give me the sticker, you know,
give me their like give me the star, and so
so I kind of martyrdom was part of my sort
of I understood was important in my and I think

(02:23:51):
reading her book and reading about pleasure activism, which is
sort of the idea that, like anything that you need
to that you want to sustain, EG. Justice, EG. You
need it to be easy and you need it to
be pleasurable in a way, because that's what's going to

(02:24:13):
mean that you'll be able to do it. For a
long time. Part of my burnout was that I wasn't
prioritizing pleasure and joy as kind of like underpinning for
even some of the harder, more somber, cerebral things that
I was doing. And I think that changed my life.

(02:24:39):
And I think we also have a model, particularly within
activism and and lots of spaces that like this kind
of sole individual, charismatic leader. And I like you, you know,
my hero is always Martin, Luther King and Gandhi, and

(02:25:00):
you just saw this sort of solitary person that was
doing that. And I think if I could go back
and do anything differently, it would be that when I
embarked on some of the public activism that I did,
I wouldn't go in the way I did. I would
go in with what I have now, which is not
just like an activist community, Like I have friends who

(02:25:23):
can give me feedback and who I can talk to
and who I feel that I'm not doing the work
alone solo. However heroic that might look. Yeah, I guess
heroicism and martyrdom the way the way that it was looked,
maybe I just don't believe that's how we'll get the
job done anymore. I think anything good will get done.

(02:25:46):
So I think that book and I think that idea
that revolutionized my approach.

Speaker 2 (02:25:52):
I love that. Yes, it's beautiful. I want to read
that book now.

Speaker 1 (02:25:58):
Around the podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:25:59):
Yeah yeah. Question number two, what is the worst advice
you've ever heard or received? Oh? So much?

Speaker 1 (02:26:08):
How long have you got? God? Mostly just like I
think a lot of stuff around toughen up, bottle it up,
deal with that later, you know, just like subtle versions
of like well, maybe tell the truth, but just not
all of it, Just like maybe just like tell like
a little bit of it, but not like the whole thing,

(02:26:29):
you know, because like the truth is. The problem with
like telling three quarters of the truth is that then
you're sort of in this like constant pealing and unpeeling
of yourself where you sort of like you're sort of
trying to do it, but you're not quite doing it.
And I don't know, I think a lot of advice
around that. Also, anyone that tells you not to do

(02:26:50):
what you love terrible advice. Doing what you love will
lead you where you need to go, even if you
can't see it at the time.

Speaker 4 (02:27:05):
Yeah, yeah, terrible terrible beauty tips advice I've given a wrap,
like I don't know, just like, oh God, all again,
Like back to our previous conversation, all the ridiculous things
that you are encouraged to try and do as a.

Speaker 1 (02:27:23):
Woman, like fake tan, and I mean it's hilarious. I
actually right now it might be like well covered up,
but I accidentally have a bottle of fake tan in
my bathroom and in my jet lag state. Last night,
I thought I was putting moisturizer on, but now I
have like these like horrific fake tan mark on my

(02:27:46):
legs and feet. I guess I'm just thinking about just like,
oh my god. And recently I was like, okay, I
want to get my teeth whitened, and I looked like
Ross from Friends when he'd had that awful fake tanning
accident because they were just you too white. And then
I had just spent go back for two other visits
to get the dentist to put my teeth back to
my normal teeth. So I guess I was just laughing

(02:28:08):
thinking about like worst advice is just like don't ever
listen to beauty technicians or anyone advising you to do
anything weird to your body, face appearance. Just just don't
don't listen, don't don't take the bait.

Speaker 2 (02:28:23):
Just don't do it so good. Question number three, how
are you? How are you now going to choose work
projects or activism differently?

Speaker 1 (02:28:35):
Does the person that's asking me to do something with them?
Can they confidently look at me and say that they
care about me far more than like what we're producing,
and and do I care about them that way. One
of my favorite people I worked with Steve Tebowski. I
remember him leaving what was a very productive rehearse or

(02:29:00):
script meeting with Logan lermon Azramilla and I and he
was like, I need to go and be with my
wife now, and we were like, I don't think I've
ever heard I mean, at that point, I certainly hadn't
ever heard a director in my career say they needed
to leave for a personal reason or for a personal relationship.
But I worked far harder for Steve than I worked
for any other director, because I think I was able

(02:29:22):
to give a far more vulnerable performance in that film,
because I felt that he really cared about me beyond
the product of the film. And I want to work
with people like that who for whom the process is
as important as the outcome, and the people that are
part of it are more important than whatever the outcome is.

(02:29:45):
I think this is a really difficult thing that I
see everywhere in the world right now, is that we
treat objects and things like their sacred and we don't
treat people like they're the sacred thing. And that's which, Yeah,
I think it causes a lot of pain.

Speaker 2 (02:30:05):
And there's something that you told me when we were
speaking on the phone, was that you've been working with
the young people on helping them with some of the
challenges that you've faced in your own career, in your
own life. Yeah, And I remember being so attached by that,
and I wanted to learn more and for you to
share it because I, yeah, I just think it's really special.

(02:30:26):
And I was sharing it with's on my team before
you arrived, and everyone was quite drawn to it.

Speaker 1 (02:30:30):
So as a young person, and you know, as I
basically shared, over however long it's been that we've been speaking,
I just really needed to be having more conversations with
people my own age and people that were older than me.
I feel like I tried to navigate so many problems

(02:30:55):
on my own and I just didn't know who to
really to and I was speaking to such a narrow
group of people about what I was trying to navigate,
and I just I think that working with young people
and giving them each other and also the space, the reason,

(02:31:17):
the excuses to talk about the things that we don't
talk about or create spaces for, has been the most gratifying,
the most purposeful and of service I felt in a
long time, because it turns out pretty often that a

(02:31:38):
lot of the things that we're struggling with, other people
are struggling with as well, And so in a way,
going back around and trying to put out into the
world a lot of the things that I knew I
needed as a young person and didn't get it's been
the most the best, most gratifying thing. And I feel

(02:31:58):
really lucky to be in a position and in a
place where I can say and no, like like I've
kind of done this treacherous journey, and I think that
I think I might have some ideas about what might
be needed for someone to come out the other side
of that safely. So it feels good to be of use.

Speaker 2 (02:32:21):
Five A question We asked this to every guest who's
ever been on the show. If you could create one
law that everyone in the world had to follow, what
would it be?

Speaker 3 (02:32:30):
Oh?

Speaker 1 (02:32:30):
Wow, one law. Okay, there's a couple of contenders. I
want to run you the wrong one is going to
be okay, great, perfect one would be around the importance
of telling the truth, or like speaking your truth, or

(02:32:51):
just because I feel like so much, so much chaos
is caused by people not being sure whether or not
they should or it's to go idea too or I
think that would be a pretty amazing one. Another contender,
I mean, it's the obvious one is to treat other
people as you would like to be treated. I would
obviously solve a lot of problems as well.

Speaker 2 (02:33:13):
I like that one.

Speaker 1 (02:33:14):
You give the last one?

Speaker 2 (02:33:15):
Yeah, the first one? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (02:33:18):
The truth? Yeah, I guess it took me a long
time and probably probably through doing my yoga teacher training.
Is speaking truth with kindness is one of the first
Nyama's right, very disappointed. I can't remember what the word
is in not sad maybe yeah, speaking the truth with
kind like speaking the truth with kindness, that's an amazing

(02:33:39):
There's an amazing quote, which actually is it was given
to be recently by a friend, which is like the
truth the truth without kindness is brutality, and kindness without
truth is manipulation. A truth without kindness is brutality, and

(02:34:01):
kindness without truth is manipulation. And so when I say, like,
tell your truth, I don't mean going around like just
being awful to everyone. I mean like telling the microscopic
truth and like having those being willing to have a
tolerance for those conversations. One of my favorite metaphors I
actually wrote about this recently for being in a relationship

(02:34:23):
with anyone is like you're in it's in a way,
it's it's a dance, it's a fight, Like I think
about boxing in the sense of like who is going
to go down to the mat with you and like
not tap out? Because being honest about what's really going
on is uncomfortable and it's risky. As we talked about earlier,
you risk every time you tell the truth of maybe

(02:34:44):
losing someone that you love because you don't know how
they can respond to whatever your truth is. But I
think to live that way creates the intimacy and connection
that I think we long for, and also like sets
people free in a way you and them. Truth. Yeah,
truth with kindness, I think that's I think that's going
to have to be my choice. Yeah, by factor of deduction.

Speaker 2 (02:35:07):
Yeah, the bugle Ghita gives four principles for truth with kindness.
The first is what you speak should be truthful.

Speaker 1 (02:35:13):
Yes.

Speaker 2 (02:35:14):
The second is it should be beneficial to all Oh.
The third is it shouldn't agitate the minds of others.

Speaker 1 (02:35:21):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (02:35:23):
And the fourth is it should be aligned with eternal
wisdom and timeless wisdom.

Speaker 1 (02:35:28):
That's beautiful and perfect, because yeah, I think there's truth
which are if they're not beneficial, that do just agitate.

Speaker 2 (02:35:37):
I think that's and it's not about not saying it.
It's the idea that you've thought so much about how
you say it. Yes, it's not that you've sanitized it,
because that's the modern day version. The Geeta is not
telling you to sanitize or be silenced, right, it's telling
you to filter your thought to make sure that the
way you say it is digestible yes for everyone who's

(02:35:58):
going to hear it, and therefore it actually transformative power.
It's not that it's not provocative or that it doesn't.
It's just that you're not saying it in a way
to trigger or get a reaction. You're saying in a
way that hits someone like an arrow of truth. Wow,
it goes I have to change. Wow, because that person
has been so mindful of how they spoke.

Speaker 1 (02:36:17):
Oh my god, that's incredible as everything I've just been
trying to say about. Yeah, if we got if everyone
was mindful enough about how they spoke their truth, that
it could just go straight to the heart.

Speaker 2 (02:36:31):
Oh, rather than hit the ego.

Speaker 1 (02:36:35):
Along the way.

Speaker 2 (02:36:36):
That's why we can't talk, because everything we say triggers
someone's mind or their ego, and then everything we say
does it back. And so now we're having a mind
and ego debate, which isn't the one that goes all
the way to tap you know, in your.

Speaker 1 (02:36:51):
We're so focused on defending whatever the thing is that
we feel that we need to defend that we just
can't heart. No, you can't hit the heart. So good, so.

Speaker 2 (02:37:01):
Good, Emma, thank you for thanks. The longest recorded conversation
on purpose history. We have to change the cards, the
cameras we had to like and we haven't paused, just
to everyone knows, and Emma have not moved. So we
didn't take a break. There was no bathroom break. No,
there was no break of whatever kind of sat. There

(02:37:24):
was no coffee break. We have sat in these seats
for the entire duration that you watched the show or
listen to it. And to Emma, you have the you
know to your competitive and winning spirit, you have the
award for longest ever podcast record.

Speaker 1 (02:37:39):
I don't know whether to be mortified or like seriously embarrassed,
or or like feel like this is some kind of
victory of some kind. I guess you sat here for
like and not moved for more than three hours.

Speaker 2 (02:37:53):
Surely it's amazing.

Speaker 1 (02:37:55):
That's amazing. Well, thank you for thank you so much.
That's been such an amazing conversation.

Speaker 7 (02:38:00):
If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
doctor Gable Matte on understanding your trauma and how to
heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.

Speaker 1 (02:38:11):
Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a
tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it.
It goes where it's soft and green and vulnerable.

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